A Christmas Carol
by Pat Foley
Summary: Amanda celebrates the season and amid the usual Federation intrigue, even Sarek benefits a little. Chapter 10 and 11 newly up. Holography, Series 3
1. Chapter 1

**A Christmas Carol**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

Amanda found the notice from in her email, accompanied by a trill of song.

_Yes, it's hard to remember for us poor humans living by Vulcan calendars on this sand dune of a planet, but on Earth the seasons roll on, and Christmas is six Terran weeks away! The annual Christmas pageant for us Human types is scheduled for the 20th hour in the Academy theatre on the third day of Sansheer. I've decided to go traditional this year, and we'll do a musical version of Dicken's Christmas Carol. Tryouts day after tomorrow at 18:30. Be there, or be Scrooged!_

Added below, a private post script was a special note to her. _Amanda, you're not going to let me down this year, are you? I wrote a part for you. Chris"_

She grinned and hit reply. "_In a Christmas Carol? That story's kind of set, isn't it? Of course, I'll be there, if no Federation emergencies take me away. As to the part, well, you send me the libretto and I'll let you know."_

She hadn't even made it out the door to her first class when she heard a ping and her printer began churning out the score. She took a quick peek. "Hmmm, looks like another good one." She stuffed the play in her carrybag, planning to study it at home.

The sender, Christian Porter, was the head of Human studies at the Academy, which was a wide field, but basically he oversaw the traditional humanities. Now that the department itself had grown in size and teachers that he could concentrate on his specialty, he taught English Literature and Dramatic Arts. And true to his name, every year since he'd come to Vulcan he held a Christmas pageant of sorts, ostensibly for the human kids on planet, those brought here with their parents in the diplomatic, trade or Federation administration fields, but also for the parents.

It had begun as a small, painfully amateur thing, for the players and their families, something for the kids to participate in. In the beginning the audience had not been much larger than the cast. Humans being in short supply, Amanda had participated from the first. Truth to be told, she didn't have to be importuned very much. She had missed her holidays and her heritage, and she wanted that, as much as her circumstances could provide. Sarek was Vulcan; he might try to understand, he might regret her homesickness but he just didn't have the background to understand her feelings, the special combination of nostalgia, whimsy and wonder this season evoked in humans. While he never said anything, she rather thought he was amazed that not only human children, but even adults half believed the legend of Santa Claus. Even her.

And as for Spock, well, she had been right. There was no Santa Claus for a boy determined to be Vulcan in every way, who was already hobbled with a human mother. And no holidays for one who, no matter how Vulcan he could be, or how advanced he was in school, never believed himself quite advanced enough. Spock would have been as appalled at even the suggestion that he have anything to do with such a celebration, as a son of hers on Earth might have been had she asked him to wear pink hair ribbons to football practice. Nor would she embarrass him to suggest such. So Spock was no help either.

Oh, her Vulcans might humor her, indulge her, but she didn't want to be patronized by well meaning Vulcans, she wanted to **celebrate**, at least a little, with people who didn't think she grew slightly dotty at this season of the Terran calendar. Or at least those who were willing to give up a little disbelief and be slightly dotty themselves. She had come to realize that regardless how her Vulcans regretted seeing her denied anything, there were some things they just couldn't give.

So for this she needed humans. Such human community as there was on Vulcan. And there was one, growing a bit larger every year. The event had always been an Academy centered affair, not a Terran Embassy one, so she'd never felt it was inappropriate for her to participate. Though many of the Embassy people did. But she was even glad of that. It was one thing that brought the disparate human groups on Vulcan together, sometimes so much at odds professionally. Working around all the kids, seeing them excited over the Christmas season, even on Vulcan, was a delight. She always helped teach the kids their parts, a small substitute for having no human children of her own. And Chris wrote pretty good scores for an amateur. And he always wrote something he wanted her to do. When she wasn't off planet, she always participated. In fact, she'd be hard pressed to be kept away.

So she went out the door to her first class, happy at the thought of celebrating a human Christmas on Vulcan, and humming a little holiday carol in anticipation.

She could almost hear the sleighbells.

xxx

The hour was late, but Sarek's visitor show no signs of leaving. Sarek wondered how many ways he had to say this before he could be believed. He settled for the plain, unvarnished statement. "No." He sat back from his desk and fixed Mason Darby, the Terran Ambassaador with an unreadable Vulcan look. "I will not sanction it."

"But this is unclaimed space, has been unclaimed since the first Federation ships encountered it," the man argued. He tugged at his collar, pacing in Sarek's spacious office as if finding the room too small or too hot, when in fact it was neither. Though outside of Council Keep, a summer night was well advanced.

Sarek sighed and as a good host, even one who wished his guest would depart, set the air controls to an even lower temperature and higher humidity and suppressed his own shiver as the cooler air kicked in. He felt as if he'd been suppressing shivers for hours. In fact he had. The office was unseasonably cold. "Unclaimed by Human standards. It has always been part of the Elenair star system."

"They are not capable of colonizing it," Darby countered

"But might, within a generation or two. It is part of their historical legend that such will occur."

"The Elenians will be compensated. And the funds useful for them in developing their own world."

"By Federation law, all worlds, including **both** habitable worlds in their system belong to any resident sentient system that can use them. They are resident; they are sentient. There is no contest. The world is theirs."

"I'm not contesting that. But they are a young civilization. They are years, generations, from being able to colonize the second. And they haven't the population to need it for many generations."

"They are also eligible through several Federation funded programs for subsidies and loans to develop their technology," Sarek pointed out. "They have no immediate need for an such excess of funds as you suggest."

"What they don't need is charity. This would allow them to come to their place in Federation society relatively debt free."

"And in return, they give up their most sizable asset, as well as their own system's autonomy. And such programs as I suggest are not charity, they are supposedly part of the benefits of Federation membership."

"When they come to be ready to colonize, there will be other worlds. Every day new dis--"

"This world is part of their legend, part of their species heritage. Further it is theirs by right." Sarek gave him a glance. "Why should they request or pay Federation support to colonize another world when they are ready, when this is available to them now?"

"It is theirs. To do with as they choose. And they don't have need of it now."

"They have not the sophistication to understand what they would give away, for a comparative pittance."

The Terran ambassador sat back. "Hardly a pittance. Sarek, I must tell you that you are in the minority on this. This proposal will give a struggling world needed ready capital."

"It will rob them of their most significant asset, for fees that they have no need to spend, and yet they'll be urged to spend them on services and goods which will benefit Terran economies and make them overly dependent on goods for which they presently have no desire. And when they have run through that capital, they will have nothing but a taste for outworlder luxuries they cannot afford. The price is too high, the gain too small. And what they receive in payment will not remotely cover what they might require in future, to colonize a less suitable world."

"You are thinking in generations, in millennia."

"Yes."

"I am thinking of the present generation."

Sarek shrugged again. "This proposal benefits them not at all, and Terra a great deal. I repeat, I will not sanction it."

The Federation ambassador to Vulcan drew a breath and went through the argument again, while Sarek suppressed another shiver, wondering why humans seemed to believe if they said the same words often enough, the listener would hear something new in them.

The argument went round, and the Terran ambassador grew less politic, and more ireful. Finally, he grew short. "Sarek, you haven't the support to oppose this in Council."

"Nor has Terra or the Terran colonies the majority with which to go forward. And I will oppose it. We are at a stalemate."

"You can't force -- this is not worth calling a general council session."

"As you say," Sarek said, as if in agreement. "There **are** other worlds for Terra to colonize."

The Terran ambassador sputtered. "That's not what I meant. This world is ideally suited for Terran expansion. Uninhabited. An exceptional class M world on a ready hub of the known spacelane routes."

"Yes, it will be quite valuable to the Elenians when they come to develop it," Sarek said blandly.

"I was hopeful you'd be reasonable about this."

"I trust that I am always reasonable on such matters," Sarek said mildly. "And no. I will not sanction the proposal."

"Is this your final answer?"

"It has been," Sarek said, "for the last four point two hours."

"My government will not be pleased."

"Your government could hardly have expected me to hold any other position." Sarek rose. "If that is all--"

The Ambassador left the office, stiff-legged and shoulders taut. And while he didn't slam the door behind him, he looked as if he wished he could.

Sarek sighed, shivered in the chilly air, and reset the environmental controls. But even before the room was warm enough for him, he was walking out of his frigid office into the flaming heat of a Vulcan summer night in Shikahr, breathing in the dry scent of the desert, his shoulders relaxing from the tension he'd been holding for hours with the welcome warmth, grateful for the benefits of the season. And the cold damp air that flowed out of his office with his passing dissipated equally swiftly in the heated night.

He could almost hear it sizzle.

_To be continued_


	2. Chapter 2

**A Christmas Carol**

**Chapter 2**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

The deep ocher foothills of the Llangon mountains rose up before Sarek as he piloted his flyer through the starry night, landing on the desert sands by his home. Cool breezes coming off the slopes ruffled his hair as he exited the hanger, eliciting a shiver from him, still chilled from the hours closeted in his office. He raised his head sharply at a growl from a hunting lematya, but the creature was far distant and the snarling breaths were moving away. He relaxed and nodded to the silent guardsman keeping watch over the security systems, who'd also noted the big cat. It was one disadvantage of living at the intersection of mountain and desert, the combination of wildlife that met at the juncture: desert creatures drawn to the wildlife of the hills, to the water and cover, and hill creatures come down to prey on those of the desert. All of them seemed to gather here. Particularly at night, under the stars.

His Fortress home edged an entirely different microclimate from the desert city of Shikahr. The building had been designed millennia ago so that cool air sweeping down from the mountain slopes of the Llangons would flow through the house. In the higher, thinner air of these foothills, the desert heat already dissipated more swiftly than in the city proper. Between the radiant heat loss and the cooling breezes, to desert dwellers his home could at times be considered a little chilly, though Amanda appreciated the ancient builders' original design. Even Sarek usually considered its coolness a benefit in the heat of a Vulcan summer. Though not tonight.

But today had been exceptionally hot, even for this time of year. And sandstone did keep the heat in to a certain extent. So though it was night, when even the desert grew cold, the stone walls of his home still held some residual warmth, the legacy of a scorching summer day. And since he hadn't been sweltering in a Vulcan summer's day, but shivering in artificial Terran cold, he was grateful for that warmth. He walked through his home, savoring the residual traces of heat radiating from it, still striving to order his metabolism. It was very late and the house was quiet. The halls and stairways were dark, only starlight slanting through the long windows to lay patterns across floors and walls. Once in his suite, he headed for his bedroom, but he found it vacant, the bed's clan shield coverlet undisturbed. He stood surprised and then he heard Amanda calling his name.

Turning, he noticed the light spilling from her office door. He had walked through the room so absorbed in ordering his systems he had not even noticed it.

Amanda leaned forward, peering under shaded eyes against the light as he came through the door. Her computer was on, but she had been reclining on a couch across the room, a compad discarded at her side, as well as a couple of her paper books, and judging from the pillow and light coverlet, she'd been half napping there as well. So unVulcan to combine all these activities in tandem. He looked at her, seeing her anew as he sometimes did. It was easy, with the familiarity of daily interaction, to forget how very human she was. But after his stressful evening, so at odds with the Terran Ambassador, he was reminded that he had taken a Terran to wife. That she was human as well.

In his mind, she was as much a part of him as himself. He thought of her that way, even as he knew the undeniable facts of her birth and heritage. To him she was separate and apart from those others of her species. His. All other humans were …just human.

But seeing her anew, she could not have appeared more akin to her humanity. She looked up at him, rubbing sleepy blue eyes, the unruly hair flowing down her back even more tousled with sleep. Undeniably blond, lighter than ever with sunshine and swimming. Her skin was flushed with shades of rose under her summer's tan, rather than the golden green of Vulcans. Hers was a standard of beauty entirely alien. All the Pre-Reform poetry and art celebrating the beauty of Vulcan woman, their midnight eyes, and night black hair had nothing of relevance to her. Something not lost on him, even though familiarity often made him overlook it. And now he was struck once again with the sense of how strange she was. His familiar wife at times could seem as exotic as if she had been replaced with some changeling creature from Vulcan legend.

And yet, comparing her to the florid and unpleasant human he'd spent hours countering in his office – and finding her nothing like -- he wondered once again how she could be so human, sometimes so quintessentially human in so many ways, and yet, so much a part of him in every fiber of his being. Their bond of course.

Yet, illogical as such a comparison was, so often he thought of her as more lematya than human. Tawny, wild, flamboyant, unpredictable, unruly, untamable. Or, in her case, very nearly untamable. Lematyas were known to be impossibly wild. Even as Amanda at times could be impossibly alien. He and Amanda had spent much of their marriage learning to find their truces with each other, both of them stubborn, strong-willed, opinionated…even passionate. So sure each was right – and yet bound to find their compromises. And they did. Perhaps she was half tamed, he thought ironically. And no doubt she thought something the same of him, though he might not be even granted the half in her eyes.

He crossed to her, as she sat up, stretching, and shook his head, watching her. Again like a lematya, seeing her do such a thing. Controlled Vulcans did not yawn or stretch upon awakening. "You are up very late, my wife," he noted.

"I was waiting up for you. I fell asleep."

"You should not have done so."

She half smiled. "Fallen asleep?"

He just shook his head, tacit refusal to play, too disquieted and too tired after his long day, and she grew serious.

"Have you been closeted all this time with Darby?"

"Yes. He sank down across from her on the couch, for once letting himself feel his weariness. "Rather unpleasantly."

"The Elenian thing, I suppose?" When he didn't answer, letting silence affirm, she sighed. "You must be exhausted. Come, let's go to bed." She reached out, her hand on his arm and looked at him, feeling the muscles under the tunic sleeve. "You are so tense."

"My office was cold," Sarek demurred. "I think I have not quite adjusted my metabolism." At the memory a shiver broke through his control and he tensed even more against it.

"Next time let him sweat," she said, uncharitably, hugging him as if to warm him, and then flinging the discarded coverlet around his shoulders. "Then he'd leave more quickly. Shame on him, trying to steal those poor people's system. And giving my husband pneumonia in the process."

"Amanda," Sarek shrugged his shoulders under the clinging cover, a tentative bid for freedom, half amused by her human solicitude. She ignored it, loosening it only enough to join him under it, adding her warmth as well. A Vulcan wife would, of course, expect he'd order his systems without the need for …coverlets. Or human hugs. "I am quite well. And he, of course, sees the situation somewhat differently. He is thinking of the short term advantages to all."

"There are long term consequences. And even if the Elenians never colonize that planet in this generation or the next five, they will someday." She pressed close against him. "That one is quite a gem. I suppose it shouldn't surprise me Terra wants to annex it. Planets don't grow on trees."

"I have never quite heard it put that way, but you are essentially correct." He looked down at her blond head on his shoulder. She had taken a water shower earlier, her pores were still laced with the scent. He wondered if she realized how arresting was the scent of water to a desert bred Vulcan. Probably not.

"Not prime class M planets like that one," Amanda was continuing, innocent and unaware of the turn of his thoughts, still pressing close as if trying to warm him. And he was…getting warmer. "But the Terrans can just find another planet to colonize."

"You are unsympathetic to your peers."

"**They** are disregarding of their ideals. System autonomy is **supposed** to be a cornerstone precept of the Federation. Like the Prime Directive. It is the argument Terra puts forth when so many alien worlds feel threatened by Terran expansionism – that the Federation is not merely a colonizing agent for Terra. But those principles are only too often sacrificed to expediency, particularly when a juicy class M planet, convenient to Terra, is on the line. They are not doing themselves any favors by forgetting them."

"I don't think it is …juicy--" Sarek demurred, lowering his head a little to brush his lips against her hair.

"You know what I mean. It's a disgrace, and I'm offended on behalf of my species," she said hotly, "Let them hustle a little and take one in an uninhabited system. "

"In this instance, I concur with your conclusions, if not your …sentiment. And if I can help it, it will not be colonized. I agree with you, the Terrans are being short-sighted in this. They have no conception how such actions polarize the non-human Federation against them. "

She eyed him, not missing his conditional. "It sounds like you have a battle ahead of you."

Sarek suppressed a sigh. "Perhaps. At least, at present, I have failed to …convince, or persuade."

"Was he even listening?"

Sarek shrugged. "He was more interested in putting forth his own agenda."

She sighed and leaned back against the couch, using the cover to pull him down with her. "We humans **can** be rogues. But we like to think better of ourselves. At times we just need help to see the error of our ways."

"If that was what I was offering," Sarek said wryly, acquiescing to lie next to her, "it was not help that was wanted."

She hesitated, looking up into his eyes. And reached up to trace one arching brow with a fingertip. "Darling, you know I love you. But...there **is** a certain amount of…resentment…in the human diplomatic corps over Vulcan's 'holier than thou' attitudes on some issues."

"We are not--"

"Oh, don't even pretend to give me that line," Amanda said, amused. "This is your wife, who hears you daily prate about Vulcan superiority in almost every endeavor. You can be quite as bad as Darby and Malkinson with their line about Terra's 'manifest destiny'. Sarek, it may be otherwise for Vulcans, but with Terrans, **nobody** likes a 'know-it-all'. Certainly not one who gloats about it."

"I do not gloat," Sarek said, partially offended on behalf of his species. "I note."

"In this regard, your noting can have a distinctly pedantic flavor."

"I will endeavor to …work on that,"

"Do, it can only help. And in the meantime…" she eyed him, consideringly.

"Yes?"

"Well, if you can't put forward the argument yourself, you'll need allies."

"I had also considered that. Our thoughts do run on similar lines at times," Sarek agreed. "But it will take a significant faction to convince, I believe."

"I have faith you'll assemble one. In their defense, I don't think Terrans have any real idea how their planet grabbing appears to the non-humans in the Federation. They self justify it so well. They need to hear it, and from more than Vulcan." She looked down, toying with the embroidery of his tunic, fingers tracing the opening seam, and slid one knee between his.

"I concur." He shrugged off the coverlet, finally warm. And aware that if he did not move now, they might not make it to bed. "But they will not hear it tonight. As you have said before, tomorrow is another day." He rose and held a hand out to her.

"Yes." She looked up at him. "Sarek, I wanted to ask you something. One reason why I waited up. Are we likely to get marching orders," her words for the requests that sent Sarek and her away on diplomatic missions, "in this or anything else in the next six weeks or so?"

He flicked a brow at this change in subject. "While I cannot predict the future, I estimate it is highly improbable. This situation will no doubt add another item to the growing agenda of the next Federation conference, but that in itself will delay, not hasten the next one. With every item added, there is almost as much argument and delay about the agenda items as there will be regarding the issues themselves." He looked down at her. "Have you some particular reason for asking?"

"Well…this probably sounds a bit hypocritical, given I've just finished trashing my own species, but," she shrugged, folding the coverlet and setting it in its usual place, "it is Christmas."

A pause. She watched his eyes unfocus while he compared the Vulcan and Terran calendars. "Correct. In 7.8 Vulcan weeks."

She sighed at this further evidence of Vulcan precision, well aware that for humans, it was too often taken for arrogance, to continually correct another. She swallowed her comment. Sarek was actually pretty good about such things, sensitive to how it sounded. Particularly after she'd given him a few pointed reminders, early in their marriage. He must be tired, or still brooding over his meeting. It had been Spock who as a small child, amazed that his mother couldn't calculate precisely, or was so 'forgetful', lacking in eidetic memory or unable to do things that he could do easily, had most abused that too Vulcan tendency. He'd never really broken himself of that habit, and she wondered how his Starfleet associates were dealing with it. It was probably his parents' fault. She'd actually thought it rather cute when he was just a toddler, and she'd probably reinforced it in him. And Sarek had never stopped him either. Perhaps he'd been secretly relieved, at each of her son's 'corrections' to his mother, at the confirmation that in that too, his son was fully Vulcan in ability. And for her, it was just one more aspect of daily life with Vulcans. That Sarek avoided doing it didn't mean the rest of the population was so politic.

Rising, she waved off her computer and shelved her books. "Six Terran ones though. Chris is planning another pageant."

"It is his usual practice." Sarek glanced around at her office and took the compad she'd overlooked and placed it on her desk, ignoring the glance she gave him for straightening up after her, all Vulcan innocent in that regard. She was not fooled; no more was he, and he stopped at that. Her office was supposed to be sacrosanct from his tidying. She had never cared to be reminded that by Vulcan standards, she was a little disorderly in her personal habits. She let him pick up after her elsewhere to his standards of neatness when she slipped, after all it was his house too, and he shouldn't have to live in what seemed like disorder -- to him anyway. But her office was supposed to be a zone free from Vulcan intervention in that regard. But she let that go too and took his arm, as they walked to their bedroom, letting him wave down the lights.

"He asked me to participate."

He shrugged a brow, waving up the bedroom lights. "He always does."

"You know you always enjoy the pageants."

Sarek said nothing to that except to remind her, as he shed his clothes, still looking a bit goose fleshed to her eyes. "I am Vulcan, my wife."

"You always attend," she pointed out, shrugging out of her robe, and taking a brush to her tangled hair. "Usually even to the rehearsals. And as you have a myriad of techniques available to avoid what you don't like, it's only logical for me to assume that you do li --"

Sarek cut off that heretical thought, and crossing to her, picked up her robe and hung it up. "If you wish to participate, I foresee no scheduling issues."

"Good. Tryouts are day after tomorrow, by the way. At 18:30. So I'll be late that evening. You can come and watch, if you like." He gave her a look at her word choice and she corrected. "If you want." When that rephrasing failed to entirely placate him, she said, "Oh, you **are** being Vulcan tonight aren't you? Whatever the Vulcan equivalent is then. Come and pick me up afterwards. If you **choose**."

"Perhaps I shall."

"Good. You know, for two people who are supposedly professional communicators, sometimes we have the **worst** trouble conversing."

"There are other ways of communicating," Sarek suggested, running a hand through her golden hair. He could still smell the water on her skin. "And we seem…exceptionally capable of conversing well…in that regard."

She put her hairbrush down. "I thought you were too tired?"

"Where ever did you get that impression?"

She shook her head in exasperation. "You failed to respond to my questionable charms. If I didn't know you were tired, I'd think I was slipping in some respect."

"I was merely…cold," he said. "And that couch is too narrow."

"There are ways to…warm up," she suggested. "I suppose I could help you in that."

"How charitable of you, my wife," Sarek replied blandly, as his hands went from her hair to her skin.

"It **is** Christmas. And better to give than to receive," she teased.

"I trust you will do both," Sarek countered, to her amused laughter. And picking her up, he carried her off to a more sumptuous bed. And subsequently felt very warmed indeed, all seasonal considerations aside.

_To be continued…._


	3. Chapter 3

**A Christmas Carol**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 3**

The roar of a hunting lematya woke Sarek, but he lay still, blinking in the warm starlight, till his timesense and his memory pushed back the tides of sleep. For a moment, considering that he felt a certain…weariness, he debated the merits of further rest. But then he thought of his wasted afternoon, of the everflowing rush of demands crowding his desk. And added to those duties the additional problem created by the Elenian situation. Amanda was correct that he had to mobilize a coalition of support against the Terran bid for colonization.

In spite of the fact that he agreed with her, for a moment he mentally resisted the necessity. It was …tedious, tedious in the extreme to be forced to actually convince others to support an injunction against something to which they already professly disapproved, and of which the instigators themselves had vowed never to do. In neither instance should he be required to convince anyone of anything. The Terrans were acting against their own professed standards of conduct, if not precisely against the law. Though the consent of the relatively unsophisticated Elenians was to Sarek's mind nearly as invalid a consent as that of a child's. Taking candy from a baby was the human expression Amanda used for such doings. And the non-human members of the Federation allegedly not merely disapproved of these tactics but professed as well that they were up in arms over them, indeed often threatened to leave or dissolve the Federation because of them.

Until it became time to act, not merely howl at the injustice. And then, all their rantings became as naught, and they ran for cover, like litka pursued by lematya. Until the thing they disapproved of came to pass and then they howled again as if they'd personally been robbed. Amanda had quoted him a passage from a book1 that expressed their behavior perfectly. "Us? Us do something about them? Us rabbits?"

Accordingly, he was forced to round them up and bring them together, like a herd dog after sheep. Though as a non-human set in inadvertent opposition against humans, he suspected he was too often considered by the Terrans to be just another rabbit, if a formidable one.

Nor did prior experience or his prior successes in such endeavors convince all of the error of their ways. Even if he succeeded yet again, in a six months, or a year, or two, the situation would reform in some other corner of the Federation, in some slightly different circumstance, and he would have to go through the whole thing again. If he were human, he would, as Amanda might say, tear out his hair over the situation. As it was, the sheer illogic was enough to make one logical Vulcan profoundly wish he had never heard of the Federation. Or could resign from the hereditary position that forced him into such dealings.

But as neither were possible, he hauled himself out of his warm bed, careful not to wake his wife. He looked down at her a moment and smoothed her hair back from her face, remembering what she'd asked him. Christmas. She had asked him about Christmas.

He sighed. It was, of course, extremely unlikely that they would get…marching orders…so soon. But given he had predicted, if not actually tacitly promised, that such would not be the case, he had another reason as well to bring this situation to some kind of resolution – before a conference could be called.

He sighed again, looking at the starlight playing against her hair, but resolutely trudged off to his downstairs office. But not before the lematya that had woken him, voice raised again in near triumph of a kill, suddenly let out a screech of dismay as it impacted with one of the boundary forcefields, which in its hunting fervor, it must have overlooked or forgotten.

The howl it gave off as it was foiled by its quarry might have been comical. If Sarek didn't find himself feeling a secret kinship with the beast. Both beasts. Hunter or prey, it was a hard lot for all.

xxx

Amanda woke to a scorching summer day on Vulcan. Outside, the red sun of Eridani was rising in the equally crimson sky like a vision of hell out of Dante's Inferno. A vision that made some tourists to Vulcan turn right around and head back on their starship shuttle. But Amanda had gotten used to the ominous aspects of the sky. And today she would have cheerfully hung green boughs on the sun, could she have but reached it, and called it a Christmas ornament. She was that full of hope and good cheer. Sarek had said there'd be no marching orders in the next six weeks – and he was as close to an absolute authority when it came to such predictions as one could get in Federation politics. A useful prognosticator to have when you were a Federation ambassador's wife.

But given her personal oracle had spoken, she considered that she had a Christmas pageant to which she could look forward. A season complete with friends and frolic, little kids awash in wonder, songs to sing and a play to enact, a virtual party with every rehearsal – and not some staid diplomatic party either. This would be a lot of extra work to her already crowded schedule, but it would be fun. A yearly indulgence of hers, one she tried hard not to miss.

She sat up and stretched, glancing at her bedside clock, for Sarek had failed to wake her as was his usual custom. Sarek, of course, needed no clocks. But then her eyes widened. There, across the bed from her, most definitely not in her arms, or she in his, was Sarek. Still fast asleep.

That was unusual. No tiring meeting yesterday could cause Sarek to sleep so late.

She cautiously held a hand above him, not touching, for that would surely wake him. But though a feverlike heat radiated from his skin by human standards, his temperature seemed normal enough for a Vulcan. He must have risen after she'd fallen asleep and gone back to work. He often did that, needing less rest than she did. But seeing how stressed hehad beenafter yesterday's meeting she would have thought that last night at least he could have let himself sleep.

She sighed, looking down at him. He took on much too much. She had once thought – hoped – that as the balance of non-humans to humans in the Federation shifted to a more equitable ratio, that Sarek's influence, that the influence of the old Vulcan alliance and its colonies and consortium worlds would be less. Not that she **wanted** it to be less, exactly. But at least it would take some of the pressure off Sarek.

Paradoxically, as more unallied alien worlds joined the Federation, they looked to consolidate themselves with those who could represent them against what often seemed to be Terran domination and encroachment. And Vulcan, who grasped for nothing, seemed to have few private agendas after negotiating its original treaty, and was renowned for fairness – and was also one of the few alliances in the Federation that had come toe to toe with Terra and negotiated its entry entirely on its own terms, winning concessions to Federation law that few others had managed -- was often the consortium to which they lent their support.

Sarek held more votes in Federation Councils now than he ever had. And he picked up new ones every year from those planets who chose a representative rather than suffer the expense and trouble of representing themselves directly. Even for those whom he did not directly speak, many looked to see which way he was leaning before they voted themselves. He felt – well, perhaps that was the wrong word for Sarek, at least in professional considerations -- but he **took** that responsibility very seriously.

She sometimes thought too seriously. After all, he hadn't signed up to be the political leader of all these worlds. He hadn't even intended it. It had just…happened. And **she** happened to think that Vulcan and its own consortium of worlds was more than enough responsibility for any one man to deal with. Even for any Vulcan. **That** he'd been born to, but **this**…well, no one man, not even a Vulcan could speak for as many worlds as Sarek did. She did her best to help him, felt more than a little guilt that it was often her own species that caused him the most grief. But there was only so much help she could give.

She sighed and slipped out of bed, careful not to jostle him. She'd let him sleep a few more minutes. And then bring him breakfast. That was the least she could do.

T'Rueth was busy in the kitchen as usual, and greeted Amanda pleasantly as she came though the door. "Good morning, my lady."

"Good morning, T'Rueth. My husband is still asleep. I'd like to take him a breakfast tray."

"No doubt," T'Rueth said, loading a tray with the breakfast dishes for two, and adding a selection of chopped fruit. "He was working when I arrived this morning, had apparently been working most of the night. He asked for tea, but I told him no. That he would do better with an hour's sleep than a caffeine stimulant. And I sent him to bed."

Amanda choked back an undignified laugh at this image. T'Rueth had known her husband since his birth, but she'd never suspected her of still having the kind of relationship with him that would suffer such disrespect. Even she, his wife, never, or at least rarely ever, told her husband what to do. She _suggested_… but to actually _tell_ him… "Did you honestly actually order him to…?"

"Staying up all night," T'Rueth huffed, taking something from the oven, and giving the oven door, if not a slam, then a peremptory push that was probably the Vulcan equivalent. The scent of fresh baked orange scones filled the kitchen.

Amanda's mouth watered and her empty stomach growled like a lematya on the prowl, and she mentally rapped her hand on the knuckles. Having T'Rueth around meant her diet was continually tested and she wasn't going to succumb. She promised herself she could have half a scone. And no more.

"And for outworlder concerns," T'Rueth continued. "I told him Vulcan needs him as well. He has a responsibility to care for himself, if he is to care for all of Vulcan."

"Yes, he does," Amanda agreed. She tore her eyes from the flaky scones, and settled herself back down to business. A sheaf of roses lying on the counter caught her attention. No doubt T'Reuth intended to use them in some dish, but she snagged the prettiest one, found a bud vase to put it in, filling it with water from a nearby carafe and added the flower filled vase to the tray.

Meanwhile, T'Rueth had selected a teapot and poured hot water into it for the previously forbidden tea, placing that on the tray. Her eyes widened upon noting Amanda's tacit theft of her foodstuffs for mere decoration, but she forbore to comment. "I will have T'Jar bring the tray up directly."

"Oh, no," Amanda demurred. "I'd like to take it to him myself."

"Surely the tray is too heavy."

"I'm not that much of a lightweight," Amanda said, amused. "I can carry a tray." And proved it by lifting it.

"Very well, my lady." The cook said doubtfully, and shrugging a brow, held open the kitchen door for her. "Mind you don't spill," she said, just as if she were T'Jar.

Amanda choked back another laugh and under T'Rueth's watchful gaze, went up the stairs.

Half way up, she paused, a thought in her mind. Sarek hadn't risen yet, or she suspected he'd have come down looking for her. She was tempted, then couldn't resist teasing him a little. Just outside the door, she sang an impromptu wakeup call…2

_When the red, red robin comes bob, bob, bobbin' along, along,_

_They'll be no more sobbin' when he starts throbbin' that old, sweet song_

She carefully shouldered the door open, mindful of the heavy tray, to find Sarek turning over in bed at her unusual awakening. She continued teasingly the line she was singing this song to deliver:

_Wake up, wake up, you sleepyhead_

_Get up, get up, get out of bed_

She put the tray on the bed, avoiding his hand. Unable to move quickly or upset the tray, he subsided, while she twirled out of his reach, gesturing to the distant Eridani, rising like hell fire over the peaks of the Llangons.

_Cheer up, Cheer up, the sun is red_

Of course, the sun **was** always red on Vulcan.

_Live, love, laugh and be happy._

"Amanda," Sarek drew up, balking at that unVulcan adjuration.

She shook her head in exasperation, and coming back to him, took the rose from its vase, plucked a petal and put it to his lips.

_But if I've been blue,_

_Now I'm running through fields of flowers_

She waved the flower as if it were a whole field of roses nodding in the sun, and then put it behind his ear, mindful of thorns. With a rueful half smile, Sarek removed it and…predictably, absently, ate another petal. She suspected rose petals for Vulcans were like potato chips to humans... they could never stop at just one. She poured some water from the rose vase, and sprinkled the drops on his hair, laughing as he predictably shuddered.

_Rain may glisten_

_But I'll still listen for hours, and hours_

He took the offending vase out of her hands, and splashed her back with the remaining water. She laughed and gave in, sitting next to him.

_I'm just a kid again,_

_Doing what I did again_

She snuggled beside him, mindful of the tray.

_Singing a song_

_When the red, red robin comes bob, bob, bobbin' along._

She gave him a kiss and put the now denuded rose stem back in the vase. She'd learned to appreciate rose stems, since her roses tended to end up that way if they were around hungry Vulcans. "Good morning, my husband."

"This is an unusual awakening, my wife."

"Oh, come on. You loved it. And you deserved it, you sleepyhead you. What were you, up all night again?"

"Certainly not."

"You might as well fess up. T'Rueth already told me her tales out of school."

"You are incorrigible."

"I'm not the one who claimed to be in bed when he was really working."

"I did not so claim. I simply stated I was not up…all night."

"So you went to bed at nearly dawn and slept in a bit. That's not a decent night's sleep, and I think even Vulcans can use one. Perhaps tonight you'll think better of such tactics."

"Given your unusual method of awakening me, perhaps I will not.

She laughed. "If I had to wake you up, I thought I might just as well do it with an appropriatesong. Sleepyhead."

"I was going to awaken," Sarek said with injured dignity. "In five more minutes."

She laughed again. That was what she said to Sarek when she wanted to sleep a little more. "Hoist by my own petard. T'Rueth told me she sent you to rest. I thought you deserved breakfast in bed after that late night. Come on, eat. You are a little late this morning, but you'll have time if you hurry."

"It was most insubordinate of her," Sarek said absently, looking over the breakfast tray. "Remind me after breakfast to send her back to T'Pau."

"After breakfast, indeed. Taste these scones and tell me that," Amanda said, nibbling on a piece of one, to make it last longer. She reminded herself she was only going to eat a half, though at the taste she was sorely tempted to make it half a dozen. Where was Vulcan control when one needed it?

Sarek did more than taste them. His faint expression might not be any guide but Amanda suspected T'Rueth had been instantly redeemed. His next words confirmed her prediction. "Perhaps I will grant her leniency from such banishment."

"Your fairness is celebrated throughout the Federation," Amanda teased. "And charity, after all, begins at home. Or is it gluttony?" she added wickedly.

"That is quite enough. Something **else** begins at home," Sarek said, setting the tray aside. She squealed as he reached for her.

"Sarek! You have time to eat breakfast and dress. **This** you don't have time for."

"One thing about breakfast," Sarek said blandly, divesting her of her robe. "**It** can be packed."

"Scones are best when they're warm," Amanda held out as a last resort, watching her robe tossed across the room.

"So are wives," Sarek said wickedly, drawing her beneath him.

Amanda sighed and surrendered to this evidence of husband's superior logic. Though this wasn't the only area in which he… excelled. At least the latter was an indulgence for her that wasn't fattening. She ought to thank him for saving her from those scones. "I'll have to bring you breakfast more often," she murmured, "if this is the result."

"It wasn't the breakfast that attracted me," Sarek said, and then his lips were too busy for words.

xxx

Afterwards they dressed in rush, even Sarek, and flew down the stairs. But they were early after all. Their Vulcan staff, misled by their not breakfasting downstairs, did not have Sarek's flyer at the door. Sarek ordered Sedet to fetch it and went into his office to check his messages.

She hung around in the door, watching him, thinking about how amazing it was that Sarek could look absolutely Vulcan and unruffled after an interlude such as they'd just shared. Sarek glanced at her between messages. "You do not have to wait, Amanda."

"I know. But I have a few minutes. And it has occurred to me that T'Rueth must know nothing about Christmas."

Sarek conceded that with a raised brow. "Do you plan to proselytize my wife? I was not aware you had missionary tendencies?"

She just smiled. "I'm going to talk to her about menus for the weeks ahead. After all, there are dishes appropriate for this season of the year. I'm thinking Christmas cookies, plum pudding, fruit cake…"

Sarek might have eschewed breakfast, but he proved by his raised head and abruptly arrested attention that he was not so always invulnerable to such temptations. "Indeed," he said, his eyes brightening.

"Roast goose," she teased.

Sarek close those eyes in mock pain. "You are quite wicked my wife. Now you have entirely put me off the thought of breakfast. Perhaps even dinner."

She laughed. "If I know you, you'll recover that thought by evening. Think about candied orange peel."

"Quite ruinous to the teeth," he said, but with a half smile.

"That never stopped you. I'll be back in a few minutes." She dropped her carrybag on the bench outside his office and went down the hall to the kitchen door.

Sarek looked at the bag, which had fallen open to the Christmas script. For a moment, he considered it, and himself. And looked down the hall to where Amanda was ensconced with the cook. No doubt she'd be many minutes discussing menus, and the necessary substitutions for Vulcan considerations in diet and taste.

This was as good an opportunity as any. He should have thought of it last night.

Sarek lifted the script from the bag. And made himself a quick copy.

_To be continued_

1 Adams, Richard, _Watership Down_, Puffin Books, 1973

2 Woods, Harry, _When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin Along_, 1926

9


	4. Chapter 4

**A Christmas Carol**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 4**

While T'Pau was the titular head of such government as existed on Vulcan, and stood in for him when he left on diplomatic missions, Sarek was its executive head. He had Council meetings most of the day. As his cook had so recently told him, he had a constituency who believed that Vulcan should come first in his considerations. Which was essentially true.

But after he had attended to those duties, he returned to the problem that had been plaguing his thoughts all day. A problem, that unlike Vulcan ones, could not be resolved by the judicious application of logic. No, for this he needed strategy. Human strategy. And allies, human and non-human both.

During the day, he had been turning over in his mind those in his professional acquaintance who would be most useful in this regard. Those with the ability and willingness to stand up to Terra, even for a world not their own. Those who were regarded well by Terra, and were thus likely to have their council taken. Or if not regarded well, than at least regarded with respect. And while some of this constituency building he could and must do by subspace, the kernel of his quorum, for expediency's sake, must necessarily be on Vulcan. Able to address the Terran ambassador directly.

He put together a likely list and took it, and himself, to the one human on Vulcan who he believed not only had the ability and willingness, but also the clout to stand up to Terra and be heard.

The Thendaran Ambassador held such a position. Not because Thendara was a large power, or a formidable one. But because it was something of a touchstone for Terrans. It was the first of the quasi-human, perhaps "seeded" human worlds that the Terrans had encountered, and their existence had come as something of an epiphany to the Federation. Although alien in many if not most respects to a Terra they had never known, or known only in some time far too distant for any history – and indeed, they were not fully human in physiology – they were recognizably human in appearance, essential physiology and a good bit of their culture. They were the first real sign for Terra that humans might not be as alone as they thought in the galaxy. And that those of other worlds might be more kin than they had ever suspected. And as a touchstone, when Thendara broke with Terran held views in the Federation, Terra sat up and took notice, as a warning signal, that the non-human factions would not be far behind.

The Thendaran Embassy on Vulcan was not in Shikhar proper but set across the city, on a low rise of ground that was the beginning of the scraggling foothills of the Llangon mountains. Regan Hastvan kept an office in the Federation Center, but he seldom used it. He was a longstanding Vulcan resident. For in spite of being Terra's touchstone, Thendarans generally sided with the Vulcan alliance. Both species were telepaths, both long-lived, compared to Terrans, neither were very expansionistic, at least compared to Terra and her colonies, both had a society with a strong hereditary, quasi-feudal history, a strong sense of their own species identity, and a desire to maintain it, even as they embraced aspects of the Federation as a whole. But outside of that, the Vulcans and Thendarans had little in common. Thendarans had developed their psi sciences, more so than even Vulcans, but though they were a peaceful people unless provoked, they didn't eschew violence. Or emotions. They were, in fact, extremely like humans in that regard, and Sarek, however much he valued their association, occasionally found their humanity of nature something of a trial. For Regan had a superfluity of children, half a dozen at least, in various stages of exuberant childhood, and while they attended the Federation Enclave school, at least for some lessons, they were very much in residence.

As Sarek was admitted through the gate of the Regan's residence, that became only too apparent as he was splashed with water from several of the children cannonballing into their nearby pool. He stepped away quickly from the droplets, only a few landing on his immaculate tunic, and then winced again at a high pitched war whoop from a disheveled child riding an equally shaggy Vulcan equine-like pony. Her older brother, a bit more controlled, checked his pony and sliding to his feet, executed a formal bow, not sparing the arm flourish. Sarek knew the child well. He was about Spock's age, but Thendarans achieved physical maturity a bit more slowly than Vulcans in their teen years, though were fairly equivalent in stature until then. Spock and Jarvis had been much of a size until the last few years, when Spock had shot up, Vulcans and Terrans alike in that respect. Jarvis wouldn't attain equivalent stature until his early twenties. When the two children were younger, they had been thrown together somewhat, though even on Vulcan, they were part of very different worlds and cultures, different schools, different companions. Given these children's …exuberance, it had never been an association Sarek had exactly promulgated for his son. Accordingly, though the boys had lived not far from each other, they had seldom associated, generally coming together only on the rare times Sarek took his child on diplomatic missions, where the boys had Vulcan – and a long if tacit acquaintance -- in common.

"Ambassador Sarek," Jarvis straightened and met the older Vulcan's eyes with the casual self-possession of one who had been born to a dynasty and knew exactly his place within it. Jarvis' uncle, Regis, was the Federation Ambassador from Thendara and his great-grandfather, Regvar, was head of the Thendaran Council. Even in this alien setting, even as a young child, Jarvis had a remarkable self possession, that of a young prince. "My father is within. I'll take you to him."1

"Thank you, Jarvis," Sarek demurred, "but that isn't necessary, I know the—"

"Not at all," Jarvis said, with a formal courtesy that matched his bearing and thus was only slightly at odds with his horse-stained breeches and sandy tunic. "I couldn't let you walk unescorted, a guest to our home," and Sarek subsided. Thendaran guesting customs what they were, no welcome visitor would be treated so cavalierly. Unfortunately the result was what he expected as the other children surfaced from their watery playground. Not to be outdone in courtesy, they also rushed up, made their belated greetings, offering him a leg or a curtsey depending on their sex, and then tagged along, so that he entered the spacious home as an incongruous Pied Piper, preceded, accompanied and followed by a host of horse-stained or dripping wet children, all in various stages of dirt or sandiness. At least, as telepaths, the Thendarans did not shake hands, so he was spared the sandy or sticky result of that unsanitary habit.

The children's attendants soon came and, appropriately dismayed at this usurpation of an important guest, sent the younger children packing. Jarvis stayed put, though, until his mother arrived. His younger sister Linnel remained, she the shrieking rider from horseback, eyeing Sarek with curious sherry colored eyes, her copper curls, snagged into a butterfly clasp, trailing halfway down her back. Linnea, Regan's wife, then appeared and made belated offers of refreshment, sending a servant for them, while Jarvis went off to fetch his father. Sarek greeted her, and declined the refreshment, answering her inquiries about Amanda. Amanda very much liked Regan and Linnea, but they too lived in different worlds. Amanda had her career, and now Council duties on top of that, and Linnea lived largely for her children. Sarek knew Amanda sometimes also felt a trace of jealousy at Linnea's superfluity of children, something Amanda could not have. Though she had never spoken to him of it, he suspected it was hard for her to linger long in the casual domesticity of this sprawling household.

Regan came out at last, apologizing for the delay. "Sorry, I've been on a priority channel to Thendara since you called. Regis entirely agrees with you--" he gestured to his office and Sarek gratefully left behind the girl with the too discerning eyes. She was of the age to develop her telepathy, but not of the age to control it, and Sarek's Vulcan ears heard her say to her mother as he was ushered away. "But Mummy, he feels just like **us** inside--"

"Hush, Linnel, you know it's not polite to--"

"But Mummy--"

Sarek shook his head minutely and passed gratefully through the psi insulated door to Regan's office.

Once cloistered in relative privacy, Sarek presented his plan in more detail. Regan looked over it evaluatingly and then fixed Sarek with a penetrating gaze. "This looks quite complete. Except for one important element."

Sarek mentally winced, but waited for the pronouncement.

"You know we're going to need Tellur."

"I suspected you would say that," Sarek admitted. "But even Vulcans are not immune to hope."

"Tellur is too large an influence not to get them on our side. We risk that they'd throw their support to the Terrans otherwise."

"They are opposed to Terran expansionism as a general rule. Surely at worst they would be neutral."

"Maybe you can predict that, but I can't. And if you are really serious, then we need to sew up Tellur's support."

Sarek turned his mind to that problem. "Tellur is naturally opposed to excessive expansionism on Terra's part. But even so, they do not willingly lend their support to any initiative not promulgated by Tellur, or overwhelmingly to Tellur's advantage."

"Even so, we need them. We'll have to find a way to make Gonosh see that it is to Tellur's advantage. That or let him think the idea is entirely his, and let him propose."

Sarek sighed at that. "Tellur is not particularly well regarded outside of Tellur. They are only loosely a part of the Vulcan alliance. And have many who oppose their other policies. If Tellur proposes, I can't guarantee the alliance will hold together, even though the arguments might be the same."

"I have to agree," Regan said, and shrugged. "We'll just have to convince him to join us."

"I think that will not be easy." Sarek paused. "Perhaps, when the alliance is well formed, after the initial meeting, he will see the merits of joining it."

"Sarek, he'd be mortally offended to have been left out. And would never join after that. Nothing would send him running to the Terran side faster. Well, waddling to the Terran side," he said with a chuckle, for like all the porcine Tellurians, Gonosh was portly.

Sarek ignored this personal comment. "The question then, is how to convince Gonosh to join? I fear the logic of the situation would fail to appeal."

"That's the Vulcan in you. With Gonosh, when the obvious positive advantages of the alliance are not immediately and personally apparent, he has to be appealed to by the countering negative repercussions if it fails."

"The negative--"

"Don't think you can appeal to his best instincts. He hasn't them. Consider appealing to his worst."

Sarek drew up at that. "Regan, that is--"

"I know. UnVulcan. Never mind, you leave it to me. You and he have crossed too many swords lately for him to take an appeal directly from you. Do this though. Instead of having the meeting of the alliance at Council Keep, have it at the Fortress. And serve a meal – he'd be mortally offended if he was being asked to lend support to something and wasn't offered at least that much in return."

"A meal." Sarek shrugged. "Very well. I will hold the first meeting at the Fortress. And offer refreshment at the meeting. When do you think--"

"I'll need a few allies to go along and lend the support of obvious numbers."

"Allies?"

"Enough to make it appear he'll be left out in the cold if he doesn't go along. But no one threatening to Tellur." Regan sat back, considering. "The Newtonian Ambassador, for one. Since they're Efts more often than Newts and don't reproduce in that state, they're obviously no threat in population terms to Tellur. And I'll take Ning. Helios reproduce freely, but only one out of hundreds of pupae survive to adulthood, so they're no threat to Tellur either. If he thinks we're keeping Terra from this world only to grab it for our own expansionism it will just fuel his acquisitive instincts. And we'll end up in a fight between Tellur and Terra over it. We need to appeal to his baser instincts, without stirring him up otherwise."

"Can it be done?" Sarek asked doubtfully. Tellur was often an ally of Vulcan, but even after all these years Sarek could never predict when she would throw Vulcan her support, stay neutral or oppose her.

"I hope so. Schedule the meeting for the day after tomorrow, but tell the others to keep it quiet until I get Gonosh to agree. Heaven forbid he think himself the last asked."

"Very well," Sarek gathered up his lists and went off to form his consortium. And not incidentally tell T'Rueth she had another major interspecies function to prepare. At least this was one Amanda would be spared; since she'd be teaching at the Academy when it occurred.

xxx

Meanwhile Regan gathered his two fellow ambassadors and went to see Gonosh. Predictably the Tellurite was ensconced before a large meal, and just as predictably, he offered nothing to the three emissaries. Though it would hardly have served if he did. Ning ate little but nectar, and Nefton, the Newtonian Ambassador, mostly small amphibious creatures, preferably live. Even though Regan could eat Tellurian food, from the smell of it, he'd rather not. Tellurians age large quantities, but their cooks were not particularly fussy about how or what they prepared.

"What do I care for Terran predations?" Gonosh asked when they'd expressed their mission. "So long as it is not in Tellur space."

"It could as well be," Regan said. "It is just fortunate that it is not."

"But it isn't," said Gonosh. "Let the Terrans rob the Elenians. It means nothing to me, or my kind. If the Terrans are like to do it, then let them do so – it decreases their predations among the rest of us."

"The stronger Terra becomes, the more worlds they possess, the more likely their next target will be in Tellur space," Regan suggested. "You are both in contention to colonize some similar worlds, are you not?"

"Think, Gonosh," Ning added, "What is Elenar's situation today could be Tellur's tomorrow." Tellurians reproduced in large litters yearly, and needed ever more worlds to colonize. Thus they were a useful ally, when they could be induced into an alliance.

"The Terrans would not take advantage of us so easily," Gonosh scoffed. "We look to our business well."

"Perhaps. But with every world Terra adds to her alliance, she out numbers Tellur," the Newtonian Ambassador reminded him.

Gonosh didn't argue, scowling at that even as his silence acknowledged that undeniable truth. "What do I get out of this alliance? What is in it for Tellur?"

"We will win, Gonosh. You will be the victor," Regan said.

"Victory over nothing is nothing. **My** people will not gain a piece of this world. Nor will Vulcan gainsay anything by it. Nor you, Thendaran, or you, of Helios, or of Newt. I repeat, to what purpose do I expend energy and effort? Without profit or gain, even to Vulcans, such efforts would be…illogical."

"Do you not agree, with the Vulcans and us that Terra's predations should be checked?"

"Bah. That yields me nothing but my own existing convictions. And those I have without such effort, or such alliances to those that offer me nothing. You put nothing in my pocket, or my belly."

"Come to a meeting at least," Regan urged. "Hear what Sarek has to say."

"Bah. I will stay at home and save my effort for something that benefits me."

"Others will come," Regan warned. "We will be the victors, and Tellur will be left out of a worthy battle, and the victory and alliances that will ensure. What will you say to your Federation Ambassador Gav, when he asks Gonosh why he was the Ambassador to Vulcan and yet refused this opportunity?"

Gonosh shifted uneasily at this. "An opportunity for what?"

"Come to a meeting of all concerned and see," Ning chimed. She had been unable to find a place to rest and was now perched in the windowsill.

"We are all going," the Newtoniam ambassador said, who had eschewed a chair and was sitting, tripod like, on his two legs and thick tail. "And naturally we would not go without offering a prime place to Tellur at the table. But if you choose not to take it…"

"This meeting," Gonosh wavered, wary over passing up anything in the offering. "This table…it is to be held at the Fortress?"

"Yes. At midday." Regan said, trading meaningful glances with the others.

"Midday is when I eat," Gonosh dismissed, and though it was only midafternoon, and he was yet at another meal, he punctuated his statement with a huge mouthful. But he looked up at Regan expectantly..

"Naturally a luncheon will be served," The Newtonian Ambassador stated. One eye stayed respectfully on Gonosh, but the other of his independently mobile eyes averted away from the messy sight of Tellurian table manners. "You enjoyed the dinner that was held there."

"It was edible," Gonosh grumbled in reluctant approbation, "for vegetarian swill." But his eyes gleamed. "How do I know this will be as good?"

"The same cook will produce both," Regan said, and upon inspiration added, "And she will produce whatever dishes from that meal you desire to taste again. Naturally the rest of us bow to your discerning palate." He sacrificed that truth without a qualm to the cause in question, and also ignored as much as possible the sight of the greasy odorous mess on the table.

Gonosh licked his lips. "Very well. If a luncheon is to be served I will attend this meeting."

"Excellent," Regan said.

"But I **must** be **fed**."

"Of course."

"And I must be fed as much as I will of what I choose of those dishes. Others must eat of something else."

"Naturally." Regan drew a relieved breath, setting his gorge against the smell drawn into his nostrils, refusing even to speculate what Gonosh was eating. No wonder he wanted a decent meal. "I'll notify Sarek of that."

"**I'll** notify Sarek of the dishes I wish to eat."

"I'm sure we'll all enjoy your selections," Regan capitulated, and gathering his two fellow emissaries with a glance, made good their escape. Before Gonosh could change his mind. Or think of something else to ask.

But Gonosh saw the doors close behind his guests, and clapped his hands with glee. He pushed his now unappetizing meal off the table onto the floor and began counting the hours to the luncheon ahead. And then, waving on the communications console, wasted no time letting Sarek know what he would have to eat at this meeting. And warned there should be plenty of it.

Of such improvises and compromises are alliances made. The three ambassadors barely cleared the embassy and Regan had bid goodbye to his colleagues, all relieved to be out in the clean desert air, when Regan pulled out a personal communicator and called Sarek.

"How did you manage it," Sarek asked. "I could not think of any logical motivation beyond the obvious?"

"That's because you don't think like a Tellurite. Or even a Terran. I appealed to his greed."

"But we are not planning to offer any strategic concessions to those who participate," Sarek said puzzled.

"I'm referring to personal greed. I promised him a very fine luncheon. Of whatever he favors of your cook's dishes."

Sarek let out a relieved breath. "That is not an issue."

"Ironic, isn't it? That one can get a planet for the price of a good meal."

"We do not have Tellur's sanction yet," Sarek said, wary of too quick an assumption of victory.

"I promise you Sarek, let him eat his fill, and after he's quite sated he'll find it just as easy to go with us as with Terra. And offer him something to take home, and he'll sign the sanction just to carry it off before anyone else."

Sarek glanced at his communication terminal. "He has sent me a list of what he wishes to eat." There was no masking the trace of surprise in the Vulcan's voice.

"One can, perhaps, catch more alliance with bribes than with logic," Regan said wickedly.

"This is not a …bribe," Sarek said partially offended. But then relented. "Amanda has said something similar to me. That the way to someone's…consideration…can be through their stomach."

"I know the saying," Regan said. "And we may not be after Gonosh's heart, but then, if the road to his alliance is the same, we'll take it. Don't fret, Sarek, this is just the stuff of world building."

Sarek shook his head. "Well, if we must assist the downtrodden and provide for the future homeless by …feeding the hungry in the present, rest assured that it will be done."

"I'll be looking forward to that…but Sarek… I have one concession of my own."

"Yes?" Sarek asked warily.

"Seat me anywhere but next to Gonosh," Regan said ruefully. "I think I'll never recover from watching him eat today."

"I fear that place of honor will be next to me," Sarek said dryly, and with a sigh, thinking of the many penances a Federation Ambassador must endure in the course of his duties, cut the communications channel.

_To be continued…._

1 A minor crossover reference to MZB's Darkover, though not specifically named as such.

11


	5. Chapter 5

**A Christmas Carol**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 5**

"Hi," Amanda looked up as Sarek appeared at the door to her office. Sheglanced at her computer. "I've just got to set these files to transfer. I wasn't **really** expecting to see you so early."

"I have…finished my work for the day, at least such that has to be performed at Council Keep," Sarek said.

"Maybe you'll get a decent night's sleep tonight," Amanda said absently, studying her computer screen. "I know **I'm** going to need one. Starting tomorrow, things are going to get very busy, with rehearsals and all. Come on you stupid machine." She gave it a whack and looked at Sarek. "It really **is** almost done.

"Insults will not make the computer run faster. Nor will physical abuse."

"No, but it passes the time while I'm waiting for it. Unless you have a better suggestion," she said, gathering her possessions. And then added, "Oh, I forgot – I need one more thing." She dove to rummage among her things.

Sarek, pacing around the office, seemed slightly ill at ease. He regarded the plants on her credenza unseeingly, one finger tracing a green leaf, then said, seemingly at random, "Did you have a pleasant day?"

Amanda lifted her gaze from the depths of her carry bag. "**What** did you just say?"

"I merely asked if you had an agree--"

"Since when have we become the kind of couple who have to resort to **that** kind of conversation?"

"It was a simple question, but if you find it inappropriate--"

Amanda put aside her carrybag. "I find it unreal. We may be many things, but banal we are **not**." She eyed him narrowly. "What's going on?"

Sarek drew himself up. "Nothing is…going on."

"Something is. You show up here, hours before you usually finish for the day. And you're acting distinctly nervous."

"I am never—"

"Sarek—"

He shrugged and capitulated. "I am hosting a meeting tomorrow."

She sat back, puzzled. "You're always hosting meetings."

"I am hosting this one at the Fortress."

She shrugged a shoulder. "So?"

"It will also…be a sort of luncheon."

She shook her head. "What? Did T'Rueth go on strike or something? Do you want me to hire a caterer?" When Sarek didn't answer, she asked, puzzled. "Do you need me to attend myself? I can cancel my classes, I suppose…"

"No. It is not that."

"Then what?"

Sarek sighed. "Gonosh is attending."

"The Elenian thing. I'm not surprised. You'll need Tellur."

"He wishes –" Sarek stopped and started again, "It has been impressed on me the significance that he be …satisfied at the conclusion of this affair. And so I thought to ask…" he trailed off.

"Satisfied," Amanda said, mystified in turn. "What in this world are you talking about, Sarek?" Her eyes narrowed. "And what does Gonosh's satisfaction have to do with me?"

Sarek gave her a startled look. "I did not mean **that**!"

"I certainly hope not. But we've certainly come a long way in the last minute from 'how was your day' to whatever you're mysteriously implying. Before we sink any deeper into questionable obscurity, just tell me what you are talking about?"

"I wish to know -- Tellurians and humans are alike in one aspect of behavior and I wish to know—"

He was so uncomfortable that her eyes went from narrowed to very wide. "Sarek, you had better tell me what is going on right now, because I don't like the sound of this. And it gets worse with every word."

Sarek drew a breath and choked it out. "I wish to know what dishes might appeal to those who are…carnivores."

"**What**?"

"I will **not** ask it again," Sarek said darkly.

"Carnivores! Do you know how many years it has been since I ate--"

Sarek cut her off before she could say it. "You must have some idea. It's important, Amanda."

"For your information, humans – and Tellurians – are **omnivores**. We eat anything."

"Amanda--"

"Carnivores, indeed!"

"I am hardly interested in those dishes of vegetarian origin."

"Why didn't you ask Regan? You saw him today. He could tell you as well. And he has eaten mea--"

"Don't," This has been difficult enough to ask you."

Amanda subsided, sitting back and considering the problem. "Some dishes can, of course. But if I tell you… If you even **guess**, I suspect you'll never want to touch those dishes again, just at the thought."

Sarek stilled a distinctly queasy stomach. "Nonsense. I will know they are vegetarian dishes. But I know that some dishes can be made…supposedly very similar in taste--"

"If it's that important--"

"I have been told that it is."

"Very well, I'll talk to T'Rueth. But I don't need to tell you, do I?"

Sarek sank abruptly into a chair. "In fact, I would rather you didn't. Telling T'Rueth will be …more than sufficient." He looked distinctly green around the gills. And it wasn't his natural coloring.

She considered his rigidly controlled posture. "Are you all right?"

"I am quite well."

"You don't look it. And I don't understand. You've attended innumerable diplomatic dinners where people were eating –"

"Amanda!"

"Well, why the squeamishness now?" A thought struck her. Sarek never ate those dishes. "Is it because you don't like the idea that something you normally eat --- and enjoy -- could taste like or be taken for--"

"I thought we were not discussing food," he forestalled her.

She regarded him with something like compassion. "You know, Sarek it's really no different than any other substitution. Remember when I used to cook, and I'd make spaghetti, but I wouldn't make **real** spaghetti. I'd use a spaghetti squash. And it looks like spaghetti. It even tastes close enough, at least with the sauce on, but –"

"Amanda, can you please cease discussing--?"

"All right." She eyed him. "How are you going to make it through the meeting tomorrow. You'll have Gonosh seated near you--"

"Amanda!"

"Sorry." Her computer signaled it had finished its data transfer and she moved to shut it down. Sarek didn't even stir. "Then you've already told T'Rueth about this event?"

"I spoke to her this afternoon. She has events well in hand and foresees no issues once the …menu items…are settled."

Amanda glanced at her husband and decided not to ask him what T'Rueth planned for their own dinner tonight. In fact, he still looked distinctly disinclined for that event.

She cast about for something to distract him and for once, disquieted in turn by Sarek's surprising question, she came up startlingly blank. "So how was your day?" she asked, undaunted into the breach, with all the artificial cheer of a hospital nurse. "I mean other than that," she added, eyes widening, when Sarek raised his head from it had sunk to his chest to give her a dark look.

"Amanda."

"Well, you used it!" she defended herself.

"You are right. We are not those kinds of people. If you are done with your tedious preparations, let us go, my wife."

"Hmmmph." Amanda rose. "Speaking of not being those kinds of people, I'm not sure I care for being labeled as a carnivore."

"Amanda!"

"Well, it **has** been twenty years. Doesn't the onus wear off after a while?"

Sarek took her arm. "Once a carnivore, always a carnivore." But he sounded slightly amused, and she could see that now that the unpleasant subject had passed, he was rapidly regaining his equilibrium.

"You make me sound like a lion in the zoo," she grumbled.

"Not a lion. Certainly not in a zoo." Sarek looked down at her blond hair as he handed her into the aircar. "Though perhaps a lematya."

"A lematya!" Amanda shuddered. "I shouldn't think so! Carnivore or not, whatever would make you draw such a comparison?"

Sarek gave her a sideways glance and started the aircar. "Just a passing fancy."

"Well, wave goodbye to it and don't entertain it again," she said indignantly, thinking of the big predatory cats, impossibly wild, far more dangerous than Earth lions, that would eat her – or Sarek – as soon as look at them. "A Lematya indeed! I am nothing like!"

"No, indeed." Wisely, Sarek quickly put the aircar into the sky, as if to leave the Academy, and that discussion, far behind. "I cannot imagine what made me think of it."

Amanda just shivered, and when they arrived she stalked off to the kitchen, tossing her head very like a lematya, to settle the menu for tomorrow's luncheon. It wasn't difficult for her to quickly apprise T'Rueth of the several dishes, of mushroom or soybean origin, that with judicious seasoning could be made into an approximation of …suitable fare for a carnivore, at least in some aspects of taste. Though she felt obscurely offended on behalf of her species in doing so. Shaking off the feeling, she queried whether these items were already on the dinner menu for tonight, thinking Sarek wouldn't appreciate them twice on subsequent days.

"No, indeed, my Lady," T'Rueth said smugly. "The gardener brought me several excellent _Cucurbita pepo_, and I have prepared them with the sauce of your devising. Plus some…slight…modifications of my own that I trust you will find to your taste."

"_Cucurbita pepo,"_ Amanda said uneasily. "That's…"

"What you call a spaghetti squash."

"Oh, my," Amanda said faintly, wondering if it would bring unpleasant associations to her husband's mind.

"Is something wrong, my lady?"

Then, thinking of his lematya comment, Amanda consigned her husband to the lions. "No. It serves him right."

"I shall certainly endeavor to see he is served with all correctness," T'Rueth said, slightly offended on her own behalf.

"Oh, that's not what I meant," Amanda exclaimed and sighed, weary of all these cultural clashes.

"My lady?"

"I'm sure you will, T'Rueth. Just don't be surprised if he seems somewhat …off…his appetite tonight. Or for the next day or two. It's nothing that you've done."

"Ah," T'Rueth said wisely. "He suffered an unpleasant day."

Shaking her head, Amanda just laughed.

_To be continued..._


	6. Chapter 6

**A Christmas Carol**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 6**

Amanda shouldered her carry bag, and regarded her husband doubtfully. "Are you sure you want me to go? I can at least show up for luncheon -- cut short my last morning class, skip my noon office hours--"

"That is not necessary," Sarek demurred. "As you had stated, once T'Rueth had the experience of hosting one gathering, she is more than capable of handling an affair such as this."

Amanda tilted her head in acknowledgement, but hesitated. "I feel guilty, going off and leaving you."

"There is no need for such an emotional reaction. You have your duties. I have mine."

"I was going to be a little late tonight too, remember? Because of the Christmas tryouts."

"Your plans need not alter. This event will be well over by then."

Amanda sighed in capitulation. "Very well, my husband. But I still feel guilty. And I won't wish you logic. I think this event requires a little bit of luck."

"Human nonsense," Sarek said.

Amanda smiled ruefully. "You never change," she gave him a brief kiss and took her leave.

Sarek watched her until he estimated she was well out of human hearing, before he muttered, "What it requires, is a miracle."

Then he shook his head at such human contamination. He had pulled off such miracles before.

xxx

Vulcan being a kingpin in Federation politics, most worlds that allied themselves along Vulcan lines had ambassadorial representation on planet. Some of those also served as their world's Federation ambassadors at major conferences, simply because it made more sense for their primary Federation representatives to also serve where their strongest alliances gathered. So those that might attend his conference were, by and large, those who would vote if a Federation conference came to pass. And they did attend. Tellur aside, Sarek had no trouble rounding up his allies -- at least for a meeting. After that, it was up to him.

Partly on Amanda's suggestion, he was holding the conference meeting in the old armory of the Fortress. Her ostensible motive being it left the Main Hall, with its huge banquet tables, free to be set up for luncheon. Her real reason being that the Armory, still hung with its ancient Vulcan arms, armor and tapestries of battle, would remind all attending that Vulcans, however peaceful now, were a force with which to be reckoned. Vulcans had never known a conqueror. Vulcans had controlled, and still did, one of the largest sectors of space in the Federation. In ancient memory, Vulcans had beaten back the first Romulan invasions and established the first Neutral Zone, which they still patrolled. Many sitting around the table today had joined with Vulcan long before there was a Federation. She wanted them to remember that. Sarek didn't think they'd forget, but he accepted her judgment that perhaps a reminder might not be amiss.

The Ambassadors began to arrive, tall and squat, burly and ethereally thin, humanoid and felinoid, ursanoid, and insectavoid and every other type of being allied with Vulcan who had representatives on planet. The amphibianoids arrived in their aquavehicles -- some gasping in the baking Vulcan heat. Ambassador Nefton of Newt detoured to take a quick dip in one of the garden fountains before entering, but he scrupulously avoided eating any of the fountain's ornamental fish, though he did snap at an unsuspecting insect. The insect's out-proportioned wings, designed for the heavy gravity of Vulcan, made it too obvious and tempting a target. Thus cooler and refreshed, though the water was steaming visibly in the heated air, and munching contentedly on this tasty morsel, he dripped inside, avoiding the sight of Ambassadoress Ning's only too similar wings. But then, one couldn't be too fussy about what one ate, or one would never eat anything. Even Vulcans understood that.

Sarek had prepared ahead of time for his outworlder visitors by air conditioning both halls to a compromise between human and Vulcan standards. Most of the beings had some period of residence on Vulcan anyway, and so were partially adapted, and would have been chilled in human normal conditions. And even Vulcans stayed out of the sun on these hot summer days, so a slight moderation of the noontime temperature would not be unwelcome, even for Vulcans.

T'Rueth had marked each place around the conference tables with the delegate's name, a necessity, not only to lesson friction between competing factions, but because each place was provided with the seating arrangements for that particular species, and a section of refreshments appropriate to their taste. Everyone gradually found their place, using the chairs or racks, or in the case of the tripods and those with serviceable tails, like Nefton, their own extremities, settled themselves, looked over the provided agenda, tasted the refreshments and sampled the drinks and otherwise prepared for a long session.

And then Sarek stepped to the head of the table, called them to order and began with a short précis of why they had gathered.

xxx

A staff assistant at the Terran Embassy on Vulcan paused in her decoding of a classified message just off the scrambler and wiped the sweat from her brow. "Lord, it's so hot today! Even the air conditioning doesn't seem to help. Astra can you try to turn it down some more? I can't leave this until the decoding is finished."

The other staffer went over to the wall controls of the unit. "It's already down as far as it will go."

"And I've stripped off as much as I can," Nadine moaned. "I feel like I'm melting!"

"It's Christmastime," Astra said, tying a handkerchief around her sweating brow. "Think cool thoughts. Icicles. Snow."

"It only makes me feel hotter."

"At least we're not wading through blizzards back in Geneva."

"Would that we were." Nadine finished her decoding and blanched. "We may be assigned some place even worse than Vulcan."

"Is there a worse place?" Astra looked up from where she was gathering Christmas decorations to adorn a sickly dwarf Norfolk Pine. The small plant light it had was inadequate for its needs and even such Vulcan sunshine as it might have had through the windows was blocked by the security films that guarded against spying devices. Just because Vulcans would never engage in such behavior didn't mean some other being on Vulcan would not. Or that standard procedures wouldn't be followed. But it did give the rooms a fishbowl like appearance and didn't help their plant, cherished as the closest thing to a Christmas tree the staff would have. "You said you were going to help decorate. Do you think we can put lights on this? Or should we just go with the tinsel."

Nadine spared it a glance. "I think it will expire no matter what we do, so it doesn't matter. Astra, look at this. I don't want to hand this in to him. He's going to blow his stack."

"What?"

Nadine handed over the decoded facsimile. It read, "Darby. You were supposed to handle the Vulcans re the Elenar 7 colonization. Dips chatter indicates Sarek amassing support to block the annexation. Vulcan alliance supposedly meeting today. What the hell have you been doing? I thought you spoke with him. Phipps."

"I'll give you my best moisturizer," Nadine wheedled, "if you'll take it into him. It's guaranteed to counteract the damage from the Vulcan sun."

Astra shook her head. "No way."

Nadine's eyes widened. "Look, I've been saving an apple. How about that? It's fresh, never out of stasis."

"Is it a Terran apple?" Astra asked dubiously.

Nadine faltered. "No. Kaferian. But it's the **best** kind of Kaferian apple."

Astra shook her head. "I'd rather have an orange anyway. You're on your own, girl."

She moaned and fax in hand, went off, saying only, "I didn't want any extra work around the holidays!"

xxx

Gonosh scratched his rusty fur. He'd been denuded of the Tellurian equivalent of fleas and mange mites, part of routine decontamination, before being allowed on planet, but the habit remained. He grumbled, "Why should I care if the Terrans annex another planet?"

"They are a young system, wanting in technology and sophistication. But they are a Federation member, and thus deserve our support," Sarek said patiently. They had been discussing – he refused to use the word arguing – all morning, and most had come to an accord of sorts, but the usual holdouts, Tellur and Andor included, refused to budge. And Tellur he must have. The two together were too populous to let fall to the opposition. If he could just get one to agree, he had them both for they often voted together. If not, he could well lose them both, and end up making these same arguments before a full Federation conference. A waste of time and effort.

"If they can't look to their own, why should I bother?" Gonosh asked the assembled group. "If they want to sell their world for a pittance, let them do it. Better the Elenian system than one in Teller space. If the Terrans want Elenar 7, I say, let the Terrans have it," he looked round the table at the other delegates, his voice ringing off the walls, "it decreases their likely predations among our own. We all can appreciate that."

Some of the other delegates, noticeably Andor, nodded their heads, though in the Andorian's case, he waved his antenna in acknowledgement, and picked his yellow teeth with one blue tinged hand.

"It doesn't decrease them," Nefton said, shifting on his great tail. "It only encourages them to think it acceptable. And it is not. In **my** culture, one doesn't reproduce unless one has the resources available to support the excess."

"Sarek's point is that this sets an undesirable precedent," Regan countered, heading off this argument. True, Newts remained as asexual Efts in such cases where resources were scarce, but that was a moot point for most species. And it was not the argument to sway a Tellurite, with their multiple litters.

"It will make it easier for them to do so against your systems in future if we do not make a stand here and now," chimed Ning from above, who after hours of discussion had wearied of perching on her rack and had flown to the hanging chandelier to exercise her wings. She fluttered them in emphasis, causing the lighting fixture, an arc set with flaming torch lamps, to sway from side to side.

"Can't you stop that bloody thing from moving?" Carter Breannan, one of the few humans at the table, complained, looking up uneasily. He represented the United Free Colonies, a group that had broken off from the main Terran voting block, and counted themselves independent, sometimes siding with Terra, sometimes voting with one or another of the various other coalitions. "I'll agree to Sarek's provisions if I only don't have to have that thing rocking above me like a pendulum of doom. With all those weapons on the wall, and that thing swinging above me, I feel like I'm in Edger Allen Poe's pit."

The literary reference was lost on the others, but Breannan was an important ally, for with him, outside of his own representative body, tended to go some other independently settled Terran worlds, equally wary of Terran predations. Sarek let himself feel a measure of relief at that conquest, and glanced meaningfully at Ning. She tended to forget that Terrans disliked having any creature hanging over their heads. Whispering an apology in her sibilant voice, Ning hovered a moment in the air to steady the chandelier, an incongruous Tinkerbell, and then flew down to her perch.

But Gonosh, tearing his eyes from the tray before him to regard the weaponed walls as if just noticing them, was taken aback in a different way, wary and suddenly balking. "Where is this luncheon that was to be provided? If I am required to listen to more Vulcan diatribe, I must be fed." He'd been eating liberally of appetizers and drinking quantities of non-alcoholic cider against the Vulcan heat – Sarek provided nothing stronger -- but that was nothing more than a snack to his bulky form.

Sarek repressed a sigh and glanced among the conferees. "Perhaps we should break for mid-meal. We will reconvene in one point five hours."

The gentlebeings nodded and began to move.

Gonosh, his eyes gleaming with porcine greed, pushed among them to be first at table.

xxx

Ambassador Darby stared at the message, ruddy face flushing even redder with emotion. "That…Vulcan," he growled. "What business is it of his? What reason has he to go interfering? At least with Tellur, or Andor, if they don't want a planet, they could care less what Terra might do – in all normal circumstances. But not Vulcan. Not Sarek. He goes riding off on a white horse worrying about the littlest and the least, about whose pockets are being lined, even when he wants no share of it. Damn Vulcan busybody!"

Nadine shifted from foot to foot, wondering idly if Vulcans – who apparently believed in no deities but logic, **could** be damned. "Is there any reply sir?"

"No!"

"Yes, sir," she said. "Anything else?"

"Yes," he said. "Call all the Federation representatives on planet. Find out how many of them are at this …gathering?"

"All of them sir?" she said, horrified.

"Isn't that what I just said? Do I have to repeat myself?"

"No, sir."

"If we had a decent intelligence service on this sand dune of a planet, I wouldn't need to hear about this second hand!"

"I don't think the Vulcans would allow --"

"Just get me the report!"

She hastened out the door.

xxx

Sarek found it not as difficult to get through luncheon as he might have anticipated. His own mind was far from food, pondering how to turn this unlikely potential ally to his side. Though conversation on that point was not possible. With a meal before him, Gonosh had very much a one track mind and attacked it with a zeal undimmed by his snacking all morning. Regarding the Tellurite's portly tummy, Sarek was reminded of Amanda's comment regarding teddy bears. Would that those of Tellur had an equivalent disposition. But he'd been eating rather well himself lately, and perhaps Gonosh's protruding girth might be a warning. Though fortunately Vulcans could control their metabolism to a certain extent. A trick Amanda rather coveted.

Thinking of Amanda made him wish she was here, he could use a little of her council, for the more irrationally Gonosh behaved, the more he wished to use logic to sway him. And logic clearly wasn't answering.

He excused himself, seeing that Gonosh intended to eat until the start of the next session and needing a break, offering the ambassadors the hospitality of his house. A few went to take a siesta before the afternoon session, some to check with their offices. He went for a brief walk in the garden to meditate, thinking his fellow ambassadors would avoid the heat of the day and he'd be alone. But he saw the flutter of Helio wings ahead, and going down that path, discovered Ning browsing in the bougainvillea by Amanda's pool, no doubt preferring her nectar fresh. He was going to turn down another path, thinking to let her feed in peace but then heard Regan's voice.

He came out of the path to the pool to see Regan diving into the water. Ning broke off her browsing to wave her antenna at him and then she settled on a sturdy honeysuckle vine. "I don't understand why you don't have more nectivarous plants in this garden," she said, sounding mildly petulant, "instead of all those roses. Useless things, roses. No nectar, none at all. And the thorns are a danger to wings as well as skin. You should have more of this vining flower."

"_Lonicera sempervirens_. Amanda likes roses," Sarek said. He pulled a honeysuckle blossom tasting the nectar within. Ning was right, it had some admirable qualities.

"Where is she, by the way?" Regan asked, from where he was floating in the center of her pool.

"Teaching." Sarek eyed the floating Thendaran. "She is a teacher. And a researcher. Primarily."

"She couldn't get off?"

"She offered. I declined. Why?"

Regan dove and then resurfaced. "This is as warm as a bathtub." He swam to the tiled edge. "Her work's not all **that** theoretical. And no one so useful as a Terran to bounce ideas off of. It **is** their Federation."

"No. It is ours," Sarek said. "As long as we choose to be a part of it. And while we do, we are responsible for all of it. Its course is also ours to determine."

"By our fingernails," Regan said, disappearing into the pool house and coming out with a thick towel.

"The Federation is an admirable accomplishment. However imperfect its execution on occasion. That is our necessary concern. As it grows in power, it could as easily turn to something less admirable. Space is vast and the centers of power too unevenly concentrated. And humans have both admirable and less than estimable attributes."

"Just as well we have some non-human representation in Fleet," Regan commented.

Sarek gave him a sharp look. "That discussion I will not entertain."

"True, were it **my** only son, I'd be as opposed as you to what Spo--"

"Regan, this is **not** a subject for discussion." Sarek said tersely, and then with his more usual control added, "We have other concerns."

"Sorry," Regan sighed. "I didn't mean to trespass."

Sarek unbent enough to say, "Stubborn as the child is, I expect him to soon recognize the folly of his course and return home to his proper place."

Regan spared Sarek a glance. He'd heard, through Amanda, that Spock had virtually flown through his cadet year in Fleet, reputedly the hardest, and had every intention of continuing. It didn't seem to him that Spock had plans to return home anytime soon. But he dropped that subject. "Did Gonosh unbend during lunch?"

"His thoughts are not on the proposals."

"Well, perhaps, now that he's eaten, he'll be in a more receptive frame of mind."

"And it is time for me to rouse him from his …luncheon," Sarek said and turned to go.

Regan looked to where Ning had gone back to her browsing. "Are you flying back, or walking?"

"I'll go back with you," she chimed, in her musical voice. She flew down to his side as he finished dressing.

"Thanks. I appreciate the company. Though it must be hard to walk, when you know you can fly," Regan said.

Ning put her hand in his. "I think it must be harder still to know one can never fly," she said, in unfeigned pity.

"I …never thought of it."

"Ah," she commiserated, eyes on the Vulcan as he walked under the flower laden arch. "We all have things we prefer not to think about."

Regan gave her a sharp double-take, looking from her to Sarek. "Who is the telepath here?" he asked.

"As a Heliop, I bid farewell to my children at a very early stage of their development," Ning said. "Before they are even like as to me, and not knowing if they will ever emerge to see the light of day. But that does not mean I say it easily."

"We are not speaking of Gonosh now," Regan said. Then asked. "How many children do you have, Ning? I've never heard you speak of them?"

"Two hundred and seventy-eight," and at his astonished look, added "as pupae. I have twelve who have made it as nymphs. In seven years from now, perhaps the third that usually survive that stage will emerge. I hope to know them then." Her huge multifaceted eyes met his, showing him a hundred reflections of himself. "As a man who has all his children at his side, you have a superfluity of riches that even you sometimes fail to appreciate," she said gravely. "And as such a man, do not speak lightly of Spock to Sarek. Who, like me, has none at his. But unlike me, does not allow himself to feel hope of a future meeting."

"Spock is only away at school," Regan protested.

"Sarek's heart believes otherwise."

"How do you know?" Regan asked.

She waved her almost invisible antenna at him, fine as hair, gleaming with faint iridescence in the ruby sunshine. "As you say, you are not the only telepath here."

Regan closed his mouth. He'd had no idea Ning had such abilities. "But you never before said--"

"The purpose of such communication is that it remains unsaid. But I would not have you, a man with all his children at his side, giving Sarek pain out of ignorance."

"As long as I've lived here, I'll never understand Vulcans," Regan grumbled.

"Nor I, a man who never wished to fly," Ning answered, not unkindly. But at that, with one downsweep of her powerful wings against the heavy gravity, she left Regan behind. He shielded his eyes against the sand and flower petals drawn against him with her passing flight. And walked the rest of the way, heavy footed, the gravity tugging at him even more than before, and lost in thought.

xxx

"Who is there?" Ambassador Darby asked, as Nadine entered with her report on Sarek's gathering.

"All of them."

"All of them? What do you mean, all?" He dabbed his sweating forehead against the heat, and drew a breath of air that even with air conditioning, seemed scorching.

"All of the ancient Vulcan alliance – at least all those with representation on planet. And of those more recently allied, or loosely allied, Tellur, Andor, Helios, Newton, Thendara--"

"That's enough!" he said, holding up a shaking hand. "Just tell me Breannan isn't there."

"Of the United Free Colonies? He's there."

Darby said nothing for a moment, breathing harshly in the hot air.

"Can I get you a cool drink sir?"

He swabbed his forehead again. "He didn't waste any time. The damn Vulcan Pied Piper whistles and they come running. Well, you needn't count their votes as secure yet, Sarek," he said, as if the Vulcan were before him.

He looked to Nadine. "Call a meeting for me with Gonosh. There's nothing Vulcan can – or will -- offer him that I can't. In a contest of power, Terra will still win, regardless of what a menagerie of aliens Sarek gathers around him."

xxx

Sarek reentered the main hall, where only Gonosh remained.

"The afternoon sessions are ready to start, Ambassador."

Gonosh paused, looking at the loaded trays before him. "I have not yet finished."

"You have committed to the session," Sarek reminded him.

"Only a Vulcan would offer hospitality and then revoke it."

"I do not revoke it," Sarek said mildly. "No more than Tellur would agree to attend a conference and then revoke that word."

Gonosh conceded that with a mulish silence.

"There are mid-afternoon refreshments to be offered," Sarek said. "But if you wish to remain here…"

"Refreshments? What sort of refreshments?"

"Various types. Fruits, nuts, cakes, sweets." Sarek mentioned those he believed Gonosh would favor.

Gonosh nearly rose and then he paused, looking down at his aborted meal.

"I can have this put in stasis and reserved for you. To take home if you wish."

The Tellurite's nostrils flared, as if inhaling all the dishes covering the table. "All of it."

"You are a guest in my home. I would not have you leave…hungry."

A measure of respect lingered in the Tellurite's eyes. "I did not think Vulcans had such …decency. But you have proven a worthy host, Sarek."

"I am honored."

"Take me to this conference. And the refreshments," he added

Sarek led the way.

xxx

When Sarek walked into the Armory, he discovered a number of the ambassadors, were standing before one of the weaponed walls.

"What is this Sarek?" Breannan asked.

"A historical tapestry. It depicts a famous battle in Vulcan history."

"I don't recognize the clan markings," said Ambassador Hrialock. Hailing from a distant Vulcan colony, his people had no memory of their Vulcan origins, but their physiology marked them as Vulcan. And he was a student of history in that vein.

"It is not a Vulcan clan," Sarek demurred. "They are Romulan."

"Romulan," the Andorian Thrain said, drawing back as if threatened.

"Romulan are an ancient offshoot of the Vulcan race. Vulcan has contained their aggression many times. For millennia. This depicts one of the first battles."

"Millennia," Breannan said. "How could you do that with your professed philosophies of peace?"

"Vulcan did not always follow the path of peace so stringently as we do now," Sarek admitted. "We too, were once a race dedicated to war."

"You are not warlike now," Gonosh dismissed.

"No. We seek the paths of peace. Negotiation first. But we have responsibilities to seek peaceful solutions when even negotiations fail. Stun phasers were most effective in containing the last Romulan aggression," Sarek pointed out, almost absently. The surrounding Ambassadors looked at him, their attention arrested. "They did no harm, but then neither did the Romulans, once they were employed."

"I didn't know Vulcans had developed stun phasers."

"It was long ago, at a time when we were seeking …alternate methods to outright war. A cruder tool than we might employ today, but effective. He looked at the Ambassadors, "If we could continue, gentle beings?"

Perhaps the Ambassadors had grown sleepy and surfeit after their luxurious lunch. Perhaps the mid-afternoon deserts and fruits which followed were the final _piece de resistance_. Perhaps Gonosh was thinking of the meal even now packed up and waiting for his return home. In any event, the debate was much less contentious in the afternoon, and after Gonosh had tasted two or three of all the sweets on the tray, even he grew mellow. His gaze kept drifting to the tapestry and the weapons.

"How do we know that once Vulcan has our allegiance in this regard, our hands thus tied, Vulcan will not seek to profit by our forbearance?"

"Vulcan has never done so," Sarek answered.

"That is no answer." Thrain said.

"Very well, if oaths are required, I swear on my honor that, if any profit is to be had in the Elenar situation, Vulcan will profit last, after all those of our allegiance."

That got their attention. It was more than Terra, certainly, who was profiting first.

"My world is in contention with Terra over several colonies," The Andorian Thrain said. "We don't seek this world in particular. And in general, I agree with Gonosh, that if Terra takes this world, it means one less world they seek elsewhere. But ….it is also true that if Terra has one world less, then she is that much less powerful to oppose us. And as she gains worlds, she is more powerful. To oppose this is a stalemate of power. And if one cannot profit, then at least it is best that those in competition should not profit while we sit idly by and let them grow stronger. I agree with Vulcan. Elenar 7 should remain of Elenar. Let the Terrans be thwarted."

"Gonosh?" Sarek asked.

The Tellurite growled, and looked around the table. "You have still offered me nothing."

"Incorrect," Sarek said. "We have offered you fellowship."

"I suppose that is more than the Terrans." He suddenly decided he could use some time to sleep off his luncheon before taking his next meal. "Very well. All things being equal, I will agree."

Sarek sighed. "Then we are as one. Terra's annexation of Elenar 7 will be opposed, by all here, by the Vulcan alliance, and by those others who seek to ally themselves with us. If Terra does not withdraw her proposal, it will come to a general Council vote. And with this alliance in opposition, I do not see how it can carry."

There were rumbles of agreement around the table, except for Ning, who chimed her own approval.

The documents, already prepared by Sarek, went round, and signatures and seals were collected, while the recording devices tracked their visages and voice prints as they affirmed verbally what they signed. Thrain affixed his thumbprint and spoke his agreement without hesitation. Gonosh hesitated for a long moment, then snatched a cake from the tray and stuffing it in his mouth, signed, brushing away a few crumbs that dribbled down on the paper. His voice was somewhat garbled, but no one could deny his other identifying characteristics.

The resolution was carried. Sarek rose and thanked the gentlebeings for their attendance, and the conference was dismissed.

Regan and Ning held back while the others filed out, Gonosh heading for the steward who'd been told to load his prizes in his aircar.

"I was beginning to think we'd never get them to all agree." Ning said.

"It was the tapestry that did the trick," Regan claimed. "People tend to forget that Vulcans stood toe to toe with the Romulans and came out the winner."

"Not…toe to toe…" Sarek said. "And that was an inestimable time of our history."

"Not to Gonosh. Or Thrain. They respect strength."

"Strength is not merely in power. It is also in how power is wielded. It is a lesson Vulcans have learned – that I fear Terrans too often forget."

"Then this will prove a reminder," Regan said.

Sarek looked down at the documents in his hand, and nodded. "We shall see how it serves."

_To be continued…_

16


	7. Chapter 7

**A Christmas Carol**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 7**

Across Shikahr, Amanda finished her last class. She'd spared some anxious thoughts during the day for how Sarek was faring, but she hadn't called. Even if she succeeded in catching him out of a session, he'd only deem it illogical for her to badger him on his progress. She'd had very little success mother henning her own son, but Sarek was even less likely a subject for such solicitude. And she had faith that when he wanted something, he pretty much got it. So she put her illogical worries aside and headed for the Academy theatre.

This multipurpose stage saw all manner of entirely Vulcan presentations. Lectures, panels, concerts, even historical reenactments – for Vulcans, of course, had no use for fiction and would never call them _plays_.

But now a sign outside the door warned that the facility had been commandeered for Christmas play tryouts and rehearsals. It didn't quite say _Humans Only!_ But there was a paper cutout of Saint Nick climbing down a snow covered chimney, finger along the side of his nose. And someone had put paper snowflakes over the door as well. A cutout of a Christmas tree in green foil was affixed under the paper snowflakes. And, perhaps wickedly, someone had added a few cutouts of Santa's elves, complete with pointed ears – and then rounded them in pen. All in all, the portal had been well shielded with the hex signs of humanity.

Undeterred by these mystical (to Vulcan) wards of human possession, Amanda walked right through it.

Inside, it was as well the door had been guarded against Vulcans, for within bedlam reigned. A few dozen kids ran rampant through the theatre, a couple of dozen adults crowded around the stage. In addition to the sound system playing in the background, someone had rolled a piano into the corner, and people were picking away at it, the score in front of them, and singing bits of music in disparate harmony. Christian stood in the center of his usual company of stagehands and players, most long term veterans of such wars, as undeterred by the chaos as they.

It took Amanda, more used to Vulcan associates, a moment to get used to the noise.

"Amanda." Two women from the Federation Enclave school took their heads out of the script and eyed her. "Hi."

Amanda dropped her things in a corner, and flinched as a pack of kids chasing each other nearly mowed her down, one pausing to breathlessly apologize before resuming the chase. With _A Christmas Carol_, there were plenty of incidental parts for street boys. A Christmas play might be considered something of a sissy thing to do, perhaps, to boys on Earth, but here on Vulcan, this was a Christmas tradition and these boys had grown up with it. It was unthinkable to be left out. Many of the boys who'd been taking part for years were present, sure of a part, but doing their best to act in the character of a young ruffian regardless. Amanda just shook her head a little at their boisterousness. After years of raising a proper Vulcan child, it was too easy to forget how wild Terran children could act. She could imagine herself with half a dozen of these monsters, and at times almost bless Sarek for his choice, and what it had saved her from. Almost. "Bedlam as usual, huh?" she returned to the greeter to take herself off those thoughts.

"You'll be on planet for the pageant?"

"Looks like it, so far."

Nadine Matthews, a staff worker at the Terran embassy, turned to face her. In spite of the heat, she was wearing a Santa Claus hat, complete with faux fur trim and pom-pommed end. "There are no Federation level conferences planned. At least," she eyed Amanda, "not yet. No one likes to make extra work around the holidays." She gave Amanda a look that while not exactly unfriendly in this traditionally neutral territory, was not particularly warm, "at least not humans."

Amanda just smiled, not giving an inch. No doubt word of Sarek's activities had reached the Terran Embassy on Vulcan but there was nothing she could say to that, except: "I hope that stays true."

"Did you read the script?" Elspeth asked, one of the instructors and another long term participant, not missing the entendre, but choosing to ignore it. This was one function where it had no place.

Amanda fell eagerly into the change of subject. "Yes. I thought it was pretty good."

Elspeth cut to the chase. "Any part you have in mind?"

"I have my eye on the ghost of Christmas future," Amanda confessed. "I've always wanted to play that role."

Elspeth snorted and shook her head dismissively, her reindeer earrings jangling. "Chris won't want you to play that."

"He always gives me some dippy part," Amanda agreed. "But will be fun whatever I get." She looked around. "We've even got enough people for the crowd scenes. That's great."

"There are more humans on Vulcan every year. So he added a lot of crowd scenes."

"We'll have more humans in the crowds then in the audience, I'll wager," Simone, a new investigator with the Federation Security service, ventured. There was nothing particularly secret about her profession, though her self effacing nature seemed at odds with it. She wasn't wearing her Federation uniform, but her security badge hung overa t-shirt that showed an image of Saint Nick and the glowing words, _I spy for the big guy._

"The house is always full," Amanda demurred, eyes roving over the gathering. It was nice – almost a relief for her – to see humans getting together outside of diplomatic events, without some particular political problem hanging over them demanding a resolution. She refused to think of the Elenar situation. If she had her wish, with Sarek's checkmate, it would go neatly away. "We always sell out. Even Vulcans come."

"Some Vulcans, anyway," Nadine said, but Amanda wasn't so easily drawn.

"Amanda," Will Baker came in, another long term resident, took her hands in his and kissed her cheek. "Nice to see you. Without your nose to the grindstone for a change."

"I'm always here for this, aren't I? At least, when I can be."

"So you are." He squeezed her hands lightly and let them go. She just smiled. Will had come to Vulcan years ago, one of those humans attracted to the idea of non-emotion because of some trauma in the past, in his case, an unhappy love affair. Vulcans had seen quite a number of them over the years. Of course, like all who made such a drastic choice, he was really a hopeless romantic, and no candidate at all for Vulcan non-emotion. But he'd claimed he'd never love again, and he'd stayed on Vulcan, taking one odd job after another, often with no job at all. He eked out a living teaching 'colloquial' English, something the Standard programs never did too well, having eschewed his original profession because he'd met the love of his life in it. He wasn't qualified for much else. And Vulcans had little use for unskilled labor. But he had never seemed too inclined to adopt any other. Of course, living on Vulcan was relatively cheap, if one didn't seek to have too many amenities. The Vulcan government charged no taxes on its citizens, given most of its upper levels of government were in their positions for hereditary reasons, receiving no salaries and living off their private incomes. And Vulcan subsidized its citizens' Federation taxes from such things as spaceport fees and tourist attractions. A portion of the revenue from Amanda's garden tours actually went into that governmental subsidy. When the Federation raised its taxes beyond what Vulcans had calculated for, the High Council always scrambled to find the additional revenue – it was never considered that such taxes would be charged to its citizens. Sarek had recently asked her, in that regard, what were her views on opening one of the ancient, unused wings of the Fortress to tours – the tour groups already did a flyby of the Fortress and the Palace as well as touring her gardens. As historic buildings they were potential attractions. T'Pau was apparently considering the same thing.

"You mean, like on Queen Alexandra's Day, we open everything for a shilling and a good cause?" she'd asked, bemused.

"Not a shilling, and more likely once a week. And not everything, but only one wing. But essentially, yes," Sarek responded. "If one can consider Federation membership a good cause. Certainly it is a duty."

"Ummm. I don't much care for the idea of more tourists, but I suppose we all have to do our part."

"It would be a considerable security risk. On the other hand, it is an unused wing. And they are already in the gardens."

Amanda smiled at the way he said it. Neither of them cared for the tourists, but his offhand pronoun could be speaking of some undesirable bug. In the gardens indeed.

"Such tours would raise considerable revenue to offset the additional taxes," Sarek continued.

"As long as I don't have to give the tours," Amanda said. "You know I always get lost in those wings."

"Indeed." Sarek had gone away, pondering the decision. She hadn't yet heard what it would be. But due to that program, Federation taxes only applied to Federation goods and services. Spaceport taxes and tariffs on outworlder goods and tourist revenue presently paid Vulcan's Federation taxes. Which meant the average Vulcan citizen, who used little to none of such things, paid next to nothing of them.

For the average person, housing could be found comparatively cheaply, if one wasn't looking for luxuries. If you were willing to eat Vulcan foods, and be conserving of other resources, such as water, one could live on Vulcan fairly inexpensively. Though Amanda felt concern that it was a rather stoic life for a human – and a friend. She did take pity on Will though he never seemed to seek it. She invited him now and then to a lunch surfeit with the foods from her gardens – always with some ostensible excuse – introducing him to someone who needed tutoring. She made a place for him at her dinner parties. But Will was sensitive to the odor of charity or pity, and she could seldom offer much. Or offer too often the little that she could. Fortunately, Sarek was benign regarding Will, having long ago decided he was harmless as a rival. Perhaps it was Will's indigent state. More likely, the sense that he was, in some respects, a sort of cripple. Vulcan males apparently found it hard to understand any male, regardless of species, remaining celibate out of choice. She gathered they tended to assume there was some physical cause. A cultural blindness, given only that would keep a Vulcan male from marriage. Amanda suspected that Sarek perceived Will as either hopelessly crippled or hopelessly bereft. Fortunately Will had no idea that Sarek had so dismissed him. But given the awareness that her husband was known to be somewhat…possessive, and because Will valued her friendship, her friend hesitated to risk a trespass that Sarek had long ago absolved him of. And she could hardly assuage Will's concerns on that regard, without offending his pride. The whole thing was hopeless to resolve, leaving many unnecessary constraints on their friendship. But regardless of that, she was fond of Will, and they went back a good many years.

On the stage, Christian clapped his hands. "Can we get started, please?"

Striving to get the kids home to dinner, homework or bed, as their age required, and not incidentally to cut down on some of the bedlam, he and the rest of the company rounded up the kids and divvied them into groups by size, inclination and ability. He then cast the roguish boys first, then the important children's parts, assigning the rest into various groups and crowd scenes, setting rehearsal schedules for each. Many who had no parents in the cast then left, clutching their schedules and assigned role. That cut down at least half the bedlam in the room and left only the adults to cast.

The group had worked together enough that the tryout part was minimal. Chris cast Will as Scrooge without much demur. "Think you can handle the singing?"

Will hadn't the best voice, but his was good enough, and the pickings on Vulcan for such an endeavor were fairly slim, giving few would have the schedule or the time to take over such a comprehensive part. "I think so. I can always speak some of the lines."

Chris shrugged. He cast Marley, a choice comic part with one of the few human males on Vulcan who was a natural on stage, but who ran a busy exporting company, and could only handle a small role. Marley had the funniest part in the play in his few scenes. The runner up in contention for Marley got Fezziwig – a fat little importer of Rigellian goods, he fit the part perfectly. Amanda knew him, he imported beesilk sheets so fine she had purchased several, until Sarek informed her he considered them too 'slippery' to serve as a suitable bed covering. She'd rolled her eyes and given them to Will, telling him Sarek was allergic to beesilk.

Bob Cratchitt was cast after that, a cheerful, self effacing man who ran one of the tour concessions. Amanda pitied him – Scrooge as an employer would be preferable to his hordes of wealthy butspoiled interstellar tourists.

Then Chris looked at Amanda. "Did you read the script, Mandy?"

"Mmmm," she nodded. "I **was** hoping for the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come."

Chris and Will both made a face. "The crone?"

"But she doubles as the char-woman-- and it's the most humorous part in the play. Except for Marley and I obviously can't do that. I'd like to do humor for a change. You always cast me in some --"

"I don't think so." Chris was definite.

"I can be funny!" Amanda protested. "Really! Why does no one think I can --"

"I was hoping you'd play—"

"How about the ghost of Christmas Past then," Amanda suggested, warding off what she suspected. "Though if we want a fairy, Ning would be perfect, don't you think? Those wings, and she wouldn't need antigravs to fly."

"I'm sure Ambassadoress Ning is too busy, and it's not as if she's human."

"God bless us, every one," Amanda said, giving Chris a sudden sharp look. "I didn't hear any codicils in that 'every'."

"Let's get back to you. I was thinking of Belle."

She made a face. "Oh, please. That's a role for someone younger. I've got a teenage son. I'd rather do Christmas Past. Or the mother has a nice bit part – a couple of songs. Well, the same song, but she sings it twice--"

"I wrote those trios Belle sings for you Amanda."

"I can do a great cockney accent as the crone," she suggested, in final appeal.

"You'll do a nice upper class British one as Belle," Chris countered.

Amanda looked truculent. "Christmas Past. Come on. I'll do the next dippy part, I **swear**."

"You can try out for Past. And the mother, if you want. But I really intended you to do Belle."

"I'm too old for it."

Chris glanced from her to Will. Amanda might have a teenage son, but at not quite forty, slender as a reed and with a complexion as fresh as a girl, she was quite the prettiest creature in the room -- and every other woman there knew it. Of course, married to a Vulcan who'd outlive her by a more than a century, she necessarily took care of herself. But there was no doubt she had little competition in that regard. He handed her the score with his directions marked. "Just sing them and we'll see."

She rolled her eyes but took the script.

There was nothing affected about her singing voice. It was true, clear, light and – after nearly twenty years of acclimation to Vulcan's thin air and days spent teaching hour after hour– strong. One had to be both well acclimated and in good shape to sing well on Vulcan. She sang the part of Christmas Past as if she'd been born to it, her voice lifting up effortlessly to touch and echo off the walls. The children who remained paused wide-eyed, found a seat and quickly settled.

"**I** was hoping to do Christmas Past," Nadine muttered to Elspeth where they were huddled at the side of the stage wings. "But I'll **never** top that. She doesn't miss a note, does she? Even singing it cold."

"She's going to do Belle." Elspeth said, watching knowingly. "Chris wrote the whole libretto with that in mind."

"How do you know?"

"I've been doing these for years. Do a few more and you'll understand the signs. You'll get Christmas Past."

"But he's asking her to sing Past a second time," Nadine fretted, as Amanda, on direction, began the song again.

"He just wants to -- Oh, here we go." Elspeth lifted her head. "A little late, but essentially on cue."

The women watched as Sarek entered the room and selected a seat at the back of the hall.

"Is that …really?" Clara, the other Enclave instructor, asked, eyes wide. "Himself?"

"You bet. Sarek of Vulcan," Elspeth said, with a trace of amusement at Clara's reaction. "The Ambassador."

"And head of the Vulcan Council. My students studied Vulcan government in comparative Federation sociology. And **he** is virtually **it**."

"So he is,"Simone commented, eyeing him with professional interest. "You mean you've never seen him before?"

"His pictures on the vid, of course, and in our texts, but as to actually **seeing** him, no, never. I suppose he comes to the Embassy all the time."

"Come to our turf? Not likely," Nadine snorted. "When our Ambassador wants to see him, he makes an appointment at Council Keep. And goes hat in hand. We're the supplicants here. And the Vulcans – all of them," she added with a nod to Amanda, "never let us forget it."

"Still, I guess that's it for her, huh?" Clara asked, with a trace of sympathy. Amanda was singing the Mother's song now, and her voice had shifted to solemn rounder tones as she cautioned a young Ebenezer and Fran not to let their hearts grow bitter.

"What? Oh, no, he's usually here," Elspeth said.

"But I can't see her playing—"

Elspeth shook her head. "He never says anything. He never even **does** anything."

"He doesn't have to say anything. That look on his face," Nadine said.

"There's no expression on his face." Simone noted, peering around the wings for a better lookat the Vulcan.

"That's what I mean," Nadine said. "When a Vulcan looks like that--"

"Shhh. Remember Vulcan hearing. He just sits and watches. And takes her home afterwards," Elspeth said. There was a beat of silence while the women considered that. "He could take me home afterwards," she added, half ironically.

Not me." Nadine shivered.

Clara glanced at the Vulcan again out of the corners of her eyes. "Have you seen that rose garden of hers, yet?" she asked _sotto voice_. Amanda had moved onto the Belle trios, and was singing of a place called home, with Will and the young Scrooge, a rather weedy clerk from the spaceport, a bit intimidated to be in such august company, who kept going flat on the high notes out of sheer nervousness.

"Just on the tour," Nadine said. "I hear if you get invited to one of their parties you can **really** see it. All of it."

"The tour is amazing enough. Acres and acres. On Vulcan. And all the fruit – real Terran fruit – that you could want to eat. Oranges – real oranges. apples, bananas. Even peaches. Lettuce. Snow peas."

"No wonder she has that complexion. She doesn't get **her** vitamins from pills like the rest of us," Nadine said.

"I heard she had a faculty meeting at her …well I guess you'd call it a house…" Elspeth said.

"Call it a castle--" Nadine said drolly.

"A few weeks ago. She served lemonade. Real lemonade. With lemon slices in it. Seeds in them and all. As if it were nothing."

"We had a lemon tree at the embassy," Nadine said. "For a while. But it started looking peaky. We kept watering it and watering it, but it turned out it was something to do with the light. It died. We never got a single--"

"Still, can you imagine? Real lemonade? I can't remember the last time I've tasted--"

"When I was taking the tour I wanted to snatch one of those lemons off the tree," Nadine said. "I sort of hung behind the group, on purpose. But the Vulcan guard that give the tour watch every move –

"They offered **us** raspberries." Clara said. "Said they were a new crop. They were heavenly. Imagine, fresh raspberries, right off the vine, on--"

"I wanted a **lemon** though," Nadine argued.

"You **can** buy desiccated lemon powder at the--" Simone said

"I know, but I wanted it for the **slices**. She had at least a dozen trees so heavy with fruit you couldn't count it. My mouth was watering so I could hardly care about the flowers in the gardens. One of the girls picked a wreath of rosebuds to put in her hair and the guards were…surprised…but they didn't stop her, so I think I could have taken a lemon after all. There were even some lying on the sand!" she said indignantly. "But I was too intimidated to ask."

Clara sighed. "Her garden is beautiful. Fit for a princess, that's for sure. Just like the news reports say. She is so lucky."

"What were you doing taking the tour?" Simone asked Nadine. "You've been here--."

"Maybe she's lucky," Nadine said. "As to why I was taking the tour, well -- you heard what happened – not all that long ago, just last year." Nadine glanced at the Vulcan, whose attention was fixed on the stage. "They say he kept her a virtual prisoner," she whispered. "Everyone at the embassy was talking about it. Well, whispering about it. My boss asked me to take the tour. Just to see if I could see anything. Not that I could."

"**I** don't believe those rumors. No one knew for sure. And look at the way he **looks** at her," Elspeth said.

"He just looks grim," Nadine whispered back. "Who can tell anything from a Vulcan? That doesn't prove a thing."

"Then look at the way **she** looks at **him**."

Amanda was singing the trio part as Belle, but though Will, playing Scrooge, was singing next to her, and the character playing the young Ebenezer was just opposite, and her voice meshed the two perfectly, she noticed her husband had entered and her eyes had cut to her his. And she smiled a welcome.

The women regarded Amanda for a long moment. And then glanced at Sarek. Sitting at the back of the theater he was largely in shadow, and there was no expression on his face, absolutely none at all. But his attention was riveted to the stage. On her.

"He can lock me up." Elspeth said finally. "Anytime."

"Oh, that was just a rumor. You know how gossip is," Clara whispered.

"Nobody saw her for months!" insisted Nadine. "And I don't know the specifics, but even the Terran ambassador was all hot and bothered over it. He tried to go over there, to her…her castle, and Sarek wouldn't even let him in. Just stood at the gate, his guards behind him, and glared. I mean, she **is** still a Terran citizen. Supposedly. He felt some responsibility for her."

"It was probably just some Vulcan custom. Lord knows they have enough of them," Elspeth said soothingly.

She certainly seems fine," Simone agreed. The women watched anew as Amanda, starting at the beginning, sang all three songs through, one for Christmas Past, one for Scrooge's mother, and one for Belle. She switched between them with ease for Christmas Past and the mother, but when she got to the trio she balked and complained. "Don't I get to try out for the part that I wanted?"

"No," Chris said, and having noticed the direction of her gaze, spared a wary eye for Sarek, who still sat sphinx like. "Come on, sing Belle one more time."

Amanda sang it, but emphasized the overly sweet lyrics, her expression making clear what she thought of them. During the intro, which she sang alone, Will leaned over and whispered something _sotto voice_ in her ear, and she laughed, breaking out of character.

"Cut." Chris said impatient. "Amanda, come on, be serious--"

"But that was Will," she protested.

"You know what I mean. Your phrasing is--."

"Look, you write bubblegum lyrics, you get bubblegum phrasing," Amanda said deadpan. "I didn't ask to sing this part."

"Think 18th century London, not California girl."

"I was never a California girl."

"Could have fooled me. All right everyone settle down. He started the music again and Amanda sighed. The intro started, complete with seasonal percussion, to which she murmured, rolling her eyes, "love the jingle bells." Chris shook his script in warning, and she sang it straight after that.

At the conclusion, Chris shook his head. "Belle it is."

Amanda scowled. "I don't want to--"

"You can also double in the crowd scenes. I'll mark the parts I want you to do. I need some strong voices there. He cast the remaining parts. Nadine finally ended up with Christmas Past. Elspeth got the mother and Clara got the wife of Scrooge's nephew. The part Amanda had coveted went to the principal of the Enclave school, who looked at Amanda commiseratingly. Amanda shook her had and shrugged good naturedly. Simone, the security agent, got the part of Fezziwig's wife, and cheerfully agreed to add padding to her slender frame to fit the part. "All part of a day's work," she said agreeably.

"Who's going to do Tiny Tim's mother?" Clara asked, now secure with her own part.

"Jenna," Chris named one of his fellow faculty members at the VSA. "She'll be back from that conference in two weeks. Amanda do you think you can double it for her until then to fill in? It's just a few lines. And help teach the kids their songs?" At her assent, he clapped his hands. "Okay, rehearsals, nightly 18:30 to 20:30. Be on time, people, we have a lot of work to do before Christmas.

Amanda came off the stage to Sarek. Chris followed a bit warily.

"Hi," she said as Sarek rose.

"Ambassador," Chris nodded. "Nice to see you again."

"Dr. Porter." Sarek nodded equably, but looked down at his wife and offered her the two fingered touch of bondmates, Vulcan formal in front of the crowd. "If you are ready, my wife, it is very late."

Amanda touched her fingers to her husband's, and smiled at Chris. "Until tomorrow."

Porter nodded, watching as Sarek drew her away.

Outside, even at night, the full midsummer heat of Vulcan hit them like a blast furnace. "Oh," Amanda paused, breath catching in the super-heated air.

Sarek dropped his hand and took his wife's arm. "Amanda?"

"No, I'm fine. It's just the shock of going from imagined Christmas to a full fledged Vulcan summer."

"The differing speed of yearly rotations means that Vulcan and Earth will never be compatible—"

"I know that. I just forgot what a hot day it was today. I'll be glad to get home. It's so much cooler there. It would have made more sense to build the capital in the mountains don't you think?"

"Shikahr was populated because a desert oasis supports the city, with much water trapped in an underground lake from the mountain streams. The Fortress was actually built for defense of the city. And of its water supply. Not because of the ambient temperature difference."

"So you've told me. But I am glad we don't live in Shikahr proper."

"I am pleased you approve," Sarek said, sounding amused.

She supposed it was a radical idea for him to think of living anywhere else, considering the millennia of history his ancestors had in their current home. She glanced behind to make sure they were out of earshot of the other departing humans."Well, don't keep me in suspense."

"Suspense?" Sarek looked innocent.

"How did it **go** today?"

"Well enough," Sarek said dismissively.

"If I could, I'd throttle you. What is **that** supposed to mean?"

"An accord was signed."

"Tellur too?"she asked, looking up at him anxiously.

"And Andor."

Amanda breathed a sigh of relief in the superheated air. "Congratulations."

"Amanda, that is--"

"Illogical, I know. But I am glad for you."

"I, too, am pleased."

"Perhaps things will settle down now."

"Perhaps."

"Did you have any troubles?"

"None but the expected in dealing with illogical beings."

She sighed, realizing she was not going to get anything more out of him on that.

"Speaking of illogic, what do you think of the play so far?" she asked, changing the subject.

"You have done this story before, have you not?" Sarek asked, his voice neutral.

"Yes. Years ago."

"I fail to see the reason to repeat it."

"It's a classic. People love _A Christmas Carol_."

"I will take that on your authority, my wife."

She looked up at him teasingly and said, in a cockney accent. "It's only once a year."

He looked down at her in amusement. "Are you casting me as Scrooge?"

"Not at all," she demurred, but considered the subject seriously, ticking off his attributes. "As a clan leader, you are very philanthropic. You certainly strive to keep peace among our fellow men throughout the Federation. And as to having only a pot of gruel for your Christmas dinner, certainly not. Not based on what T'Rueth and I have planned for you menu-wise. No, I'd say all in all you keep Christmas rather well. Even for a Vulcan, you are," she teased, "stellar."

"I am prepared to see my wife keep it, at any rate," Sarek said, undrawn.

"In a few weeks the play will be over and my schedule will go back to normal."

"Did you hear me protesting?"

"No." She regarded him doubtfully. "You never actually do that. But… you have that look on your face."

Sarek drew up, startled from his Vulcan calm, though his expression didn't change. "Surely not. I have no expression."

"That's what I mean. Normally you have something I can read, but now you have that ultra Vulcan look. Even I have trouble knowing what you're thinking when you wear **that** look."

"Indeed." Sarek looked thoughtful.

"You see? Now you're **not** wearing it."

"Amanda, it is entirely inappropriate for you to comment on my--"

"Oh, is it? Even your wife? Well, far be it from me to **comment**. But whenever I do this pageant thing you always wear that--"

"Amanda!"

She half laughed, half sighed. "All right."

All injured dignity, Sarek handed her into their aircar.

But under cover of the closing airlock, she murmured, "But you **still** have that look."

_To be continued…._

15


	8. Chapter 8

**A Christmas Carol**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 8**

Tellurites were not reflective as a rule. They tended to take life on face value, get what they could out of it and move on, not strain over what could have been, or what might be. They proliferated and expanded into space not so much due to any scientific or philosophical bent as to the pressures of their always expanding populations.

Once Sarek's accord was signed, Gonosh thought little of it, other than to estimate how long the food he carried away would last him. He was finishing the remainder when Ambassador Darby was announced.

"Gonosh," Darby looked over the spread on the table, and his eyes widened. This was not the usual Tellurian swill. The porcine beings were known for the vastness of their meals, (as well as their waistlines) but not for the quality. And the dishes before him bore an uncanny resemblance to some of the elegant fare that had been served at the last dinner party he'd attended at Sarek's residence, though somewhat the worst for travel.

"Do you have a Vulcan chef, Gonosh?" he asked, suspecting the answer.

"No." Seeing the direction of his gaze, Gonosh put a bulky arm protectively around his platter. "It is my meal from yesterday's luncheon. I have a dainty appetite, for a Tellurite. I left this unfinished."

"I understand at this…luncheon…you agreed to support Vulcan to oppose the Elenar 7 colonization."

"I do not 'support Vulcan'," Gonosh bridled. "Tellur speaks on her own. We need no support and only stand with those who agree with **us**. This Terran predation should be checked."

"Gonosh. If you had concerns about the Elenar colonization, I don't understand why you wouldn't have spoken to Terra. To me."

Gonosh drew himself up, barrel belly sticking out and porcine snout flaring. "Did Terra speak to Tellur before making their decision?"

"Terra didn't know Tellur would have been opposed. Look, our species are similar in many respects. Both seek colonization opportunities. Unlike the Vulcans - who are so unfeeling they don't reproduce as we do – and no doubt seek to check all of us that do," Darby added adroitly. "Will you aid them in this?"

"It is possible that was their goal," Gonosh admitted. "I might have been busy eating during that discussion. Normally, I have no truck with Vulcans," he took another bite, "in most respects."

"Terra has sought to find worlds Tellur would not choose."

Gonosh belched to make more room, before snagging another platter. "A pretty speech to make now."

"Gonosh. Terra wishes to make this work…to the mutual agreement of all."

The Tellurite sat back and wiped his mouth with the back of his furred hand. "Interesting how Terra is interested in the good opinions of all only after she has lost them."

Darby flushed. "That is certainly not true."

Gonosh grunted. "I have pledged my support to the alliance."

Darby looked at the food spread out across the table. "Can Tellur be bought so cheaply?"

Gonosh looked at his table, now almost empty, "You speak of the mutual agreement. But not of the mutual advantage. What does Terra offer Tellur?"

Darby eyed him consideringly. "Can you bring Andor with you?"

"I don't speak for Andor." He looked over his ravaged table. "This is finished. But I have not. I must call for more luncheon. That is the problem with Vulcan food. It's palatable, more than palatable. But not filling."

"I'll need Andor too," Darby temporized, backing away, well aware of what Tellurian food looked …and smelled...like. There were some things he would not do for the cause. And standing around while Gonosh attacked a Tellurian meal was one of them. "Or some other power. Let me speak to them, and see what I can do. For all our allies."

Gonosh simply shrugged. And called for a servant to escort Darby out and bring in the next course, both at once.

xxx

Standing in the Andorian's embassy, breathing the faintly sulfurous reek the blue tinged beings preferred, Darby found Thrain was less accommodating.

"Andor has agreed to the accord. We are committed to the Vulcan alliance."

"I don't understand how you could commit to an alliance with Vulcan before speaking to Earth. Was it not a Terran researcher who saved billions of Andorians from the Blue Death?"

"Yes," Thrain said, and then added dryly, "Funded by a Vulcan research grant."

Darby abruptly abandoned that tack.

Ambassador Thrain waggled an antenna. "Do I need Terra's permission to speak? Or do decide? In the Federation, I thought we were all accorded a say. Even if in opposition to Terra."

"I didn't mean to imply that you didn't."

"No." The Andorian colored a deeper blue, a sign of heightened emotions, and he barred his yellow teeth. "You stated it quite clearly -- to any sentient being."

Darby stepped back. Andorians were known to be unbridled, even occasionally volatile in their responses. Not discounting the diplomatic staff. "Thelon--"

But the Andorian had checked himself, and now essayed only a yellow tinged smile, sickly by Terran standards, but not violent. "The Vulcans may not offer us much – but they offer more consideration and respect than Terra does – who reconsiders their actions only when they lose their allies' support. Do not seek to change my decision on this point. It is made, and now will not be unmade. In this, Andor stands with Vulcan."

It was a blow to Darby, and even wary of the Andorian, he gave it one last try. "Gonosh may choose otherwise."

The Andorian veiled his eyes in a gesture of disgust, but also a sign he refused to be threatened by that fact. The ultimate disdain for an Andorian – the 'you are so insignificant I can't even see you'. Darby flushed at that, but Thrain went on, unsparing of his guest. "If Tellur stands against the alliance he has sworn, he disgraces only Tellur. Andor handles its dealings differently." The blue shaded lids opened slyly. "But I would not trust too swiftly that Tellur will shift allegiances. In fact, if I were Terra, I would – what is the English phrase? – check your wallet."

Darby did, almost reflexively, then catching himself, glared at Thrain. "There is nothing I can say to make you reconsider?"

"There is nothing."

Darby stalked out. He didn't bother to approach Thendara. They were too strong a Vulcan ally. If he couldn't get Andor, then at the least, he'd need the Independent Terran colonies to reshift their allegiance back to Terra. But he would rather have had Andor. Not only were they more numerous, but the independent colonies were, well, _Terran_. True, they should have sided with Terra from the start. But the disadvantage, now that they had not, was that the wiles and ruses he might use on aliens might not be accepted so easily by Terrans, might be seen through more easily. And with Vulcan against him, he would rather have another alien species in his pocket – it was better politically. But when it came down to it, all votes were equal. He'd take what he could get. Still he shifted his shoulders unhappily as he went on his next call. An Ambassador's job was not always an easy one.

xxx

After the Tellurites' rancid smelling sty, and the Andorians' sulfurous reek, the ordinary human furnishings, atmosphere, and temperature was of Breannan's office was a relief. Breannan even offered him whiskey, which Darby gratefully accepted. But apparently that was all he intended to offer.

"I was expecting to see you, Mason. But not quite so quickly."

"Not as quickly as Sarek did," Darby said ungraciously.

Breannan chuckled. "True. Vulcan efficiency, I suppose. But you must have known Sarek would oppose this. His positions on these sorts of things is no secret. Nor should it be any surprise."

"What surprises me is your support. How could you side with the Vulcans, Carter?"

Breannan lost his smile. "Don't ask me that. You and I both know Terra's position on this is unconscionable. The thing is quite wrong in itself."

"The pot calling the kettle black," Darby said, using the Terran idiom with deliberate and pointed relish. "You are from a colony itself. Your worlds, even you, wouldn't exist but for that. You're fifth generation colonists, aren't you?"

"But not from an inherently settled system. **That** is what is against Federation precepts."

"That's not for you or I to determine."

'Perhaps not you. But I am my conglomerate's representative. I **have** the authority to judge Federation policy in the field on these issues. I don't need to wait for governmental approval. And I agree with Sarek. It's a violation. Very nearly unconstitutional."

"Not if the Elenians give consent."

Breannan snorted rudely, toying with his glass. He'd taken a dram in turn, but done little more than touch his lips to it, wary of its effects during negotiations. "You might as well ask my dog. If I had one on Vulcan. Those peoples are babes in the woods --- and the woods of Federation politics are getting deeper and darker with every year. Thank goodness we have a few lights in that darkness. And in this case, it isn't Terra shining. It is Vulcan."

"You're suggesting they get subsidies and loans much as **your** worlds have done. But there's a thing about loans. They can be called in."

Breannan raised his head. "Is that a threat?"

"No."

"Good. Because I renegotiated those loans two standard years ago. And I used Vulcan lawyers. There's not a loophole in those documents you can find to use against me."

"You were thinking of extending your loan if you added the system axis spaceport," Darby added cannily. "The Elenian colonization will put a lot of ready capital in everyone's hands. Making funds free for your group. Without that, well, an additional loan might be …harder to come by."

"So it's first threats and then blackmail? Are you willing to put that in writing?"

"Nothing so crass. Just a friendly appraisal of the situation… as it might be. Things can change swiftly in Federation politics."

"And if I take it back to the alliance, that Terra is willing to call in or hold out on loans to accredited Federation members when they refuse to go along with their …predations? How well do you think that will go over?"

Darby shrugged. "You misinterpreted me. You've no proof." He took a device from a fold in his shirt, a scrambler that automatically blocked recording devices and tossed it on the table. A necessary precaution, preventing anyone from recording their conversation.

Breannan eyed the device with disgust. "You implied it. Your meaning was clear enough."

"My intention was only to bring your group back into the fold of other Terran worlds, where it belongs."

"I'll decide where we belong. And as for the colonization -- you can't railroad this one through, Darby. Tell your superiors that. Maybe the Elenians aren't wise to this sort of thing, but we are not all easy marks. Either the Federation stands on its precepts or it doesn't. And I look upon my actions as saving the Federation, where as yours will eventually tear it apart. And as far as my conglomerate and their loan, I believe we could find other sources of aid for the spaceport. The alliance has quite a few wealthy worlds who'd be interested in a good investment." He rose and put down his glass, in a gesture of dismissal that, human to human, could not be mistaken. "I think we're done here."

And Darby left, momentarily thwarted. He had Tellur, perhaps. But he would need at least one other large voting block to check Sarek's move. And his heart sank at the prospect of his next call.

xxx

The Helios Embassy on Vulcan resembled not so much a building as a garden, a sculpture museum, or a vineyard. There were no walls, for those of Helios had no history of living inside walls, and found them claustrophobic. There were warning strips for where forcefields would engage during Vulcan sandstorms, to provide some minimal shelter during those whipping winds. Since it seldom rained on Vulcan, except in certain seasons, there were not even any permanent horizontal or hanging shelters against hail, so damaging to wings, something considered prudent on Helios.

Ning's office was little more than a clearing around some artfully espaliered flowering vines, the natural flowers interspersed with a few nectar stations very like oversized hummingbird feeders. She came down only reluctantly to the ground, out of mere politeness. She knew Terrans hated dealing with those over their heads, and often had a jealous prejudice against those who could fly, forced as they were to remain forever Earthbound, however afar the galaxy they settled.

"Ambassador Darby." She had no chairs, but she gestured him to where a large knotted vine was trained into something very like a seat – at least for bipeds. She fluttered to a more appropriate perch.

"Ambassadress Ning." He looked at her uneasily. Terrans like to peer into another being's eyes, a non telepath's mistaken belief that in doing so they were seeing more than mere surface speech and mannerisms, a sense of the other's soul. But Ning's multifaceted eyes were like huge checkerboard cut gems, revealing not her, but dozens of reflections of himself. It made him uneasy. And he could see his discomfort reflected back multifold, only increasing his desire to depart. It wasn't that he was uncomfortable with aliens, he told himself Only that he was uncomfortable trying to convince them of policies he too, knew were inherently wrong. In that sense, he was the wrong person to head up the Terran Embassy on Vulcan. But Vulcan was one of the bigger diplomatic posts that existed, one of those milestones every ambitious career diplomat had to pass. Fail on Vulcan – and too many did – and your career was capped. You went down to lesser posts, not up. And Darby didn't want to go down. This was the price of success. And he was willing to pay it, whatever it cost. He knew too many other career diplomats whose careers had been cut short, cut off at the head, by Sarek of Vulcan. Not him.

Ning gestured with a wing that looked as insubstantial as spidersilk, and was tougher than any silk, nylon or permawebbing. "You wished to speak to me of Elenar."

Darby drew a deep breath in the thin air, nearly choking as its arid dryness rasped a throat already dry with nervousness. Despite the beauty of the creature before him, he wasn't thinking of angels or butterflies. No, in this woven knotted cage of living plants, facing those huge eyes, and wings aside, he felt more as if he were facing a spider. The kind that ate their male mates. He cleared his throat, swallowing hard to give himself moisture enough to speak, and began.

xxx

Play rehearsals started the day after casting, and Amanda's already crowded schedule was made more so by them. And Sarek's was as well. In past events, he had invariably showed up for each rehearsal, sometimes at the beginning, sometimes nearly at the end, a silent, alien observer to this very human activity. Not knowing when he would arrive, there had always been a hint of tension among some of the other cast members until the Vulcan appeared and settled in the same seat at the back of the theatre. He never said a word, though he inclined his head politely to greetings. He never interfered regardless of what Amanda did on stage, though the stage directions sometimes required she take another actor's hand, or even stage an embrace. Amanda treated Sarek's presence equally matter-of-factly. Sometimes she acknowledged him, but if she was busy, she didn't. He simply sat watching, an unreadable expression on his face. Only at the end of each rehearsal did he rise, nodding politely to the other cast members, offer her the two fingered touch of bondmates and escort her home.

After a while, the human cast members had learned to ignore him as if he were simply part of the furniture.

But for this group, while many of the participants were not unfamiliar with his habit, they were human enough that they needed to get used to it all over again. And to the new ones, he was a most intimidating figure. Even lost as he was in the dimness at the back of the theater, they found it hard to forget his presence.

Amanda had smiled at him when he'd entered today, though he'd shown no discernable response. But then she'd ignored him, busy with corralling half a dozen kids and teaching them their parts in the first part of the rehearsal, and when the kids were dismissed, going through her own role with her colleagues in the later part of the evening. But as they were leaving, her fingers touching his, Sarek said something to her, pitched too low for the others to hear, and she responded with a ripple of laughter, and she dropped her fingers from his and took his arm.

"I wonder what he said?" Nadine asked, looking after them. Of all them, she resented the Vulcan most, since Sarek's move to check the Elenian colonization had put her boss into a definite temper.

"Do Vulcans make jokes?" Simone asked, with her air of professional curiosity. As a spy, or at least a security agent, she liked to pick up all odds bits of trivia.

"Surely not," Nadine said, taken aback at the thought.

"If he has a sense of humor too, in addition to everything else, I am going to go home and cut my throat," Elspeth said. "And it can't be, even my students know Vulcans are totally dedicated to logic." There was a silence as the group digested that, and then she ventured, "Do you actually think?"

"Never," Simone said. But she sounded rather uncertain. "Well, **I've** never heard a Vulcan make a joke. And I work with a few of them, at the spaceport."

"Oh, he has one," Jenna said, coming up behind them, tilting her head toward the door Sarek had walked through. "A sense of humor that is," she clarified hastily as the women turned to her, wide eyed. "At least, I've heard Amanda say so. I have even heard him tease her, once, though he didn't realize I was in earshot."

"What did he say?" "Tell, tell!" the rest chorused.

Jenna drew back, astonished. "Ladies….look, I don't think I'd better. It was…personal."

"Personal…He actually says things that are personal?" Clara asked.

"Of course he says personal things to her. He is married to her," Jenna said, exasperated at this denseness. "Vulcans aren't androids or machines."

"Most of those I've dealt with--" Simone began.

"Can you just imagine? All that **and** he has a sense of humor. I **am** going to go home and cut my throat," Elspeth rode over the chorus of responses.

"All **that**? All **what**?" Nadine asked, still truculent.

"Oh, I don't know," Simone said, dryly. "Ruler of a planet and a good half a quadrant, and tacit spokesman for the rest of it. He's powerful; handsome if you like the look-" she looked at Elspeth, "and it seems some of us do. And not merely wealthy. If you judge by the evidence of her gardens and other odd ornaments, he's generous too. What's not to like?"

"Apart from the coldness?" Nadine asked.

"Hmmm." Simone looked after the couple speculatively. "This planet is hot enough that I bet even Vulcans warm up by nightfall. She doesn't look like she feels chilly. Nor does he, for that matter. In fact, that two fingered touch aside, I wager they keep each other very warm."

Jenna sputtered and titched. "Really, Simone!"

The agent shrugged. "Just a guess. Body language, that sort of thing. In my business, you learn to read it."

"Can you read a Vulcan?" Jenna asked, amused in spite of herself.

"Not well. But I can read hers with him. Let's just say she doesn't act like a woman who spends all these long Vulcan nights sleeping."

There was a silence as they all considered this, Simone's professional air lending the assertion weight.

"But how does one even **attract** a Vulcan?" Clara asked, her brow puzzled. "I've never seen one so much as flick an eyebrow of interest at any girl. Have any of you?"

As a group, they all shook their heads, mystified.

"Maybe it's not him," Simone mused, her brow creased in thought. "Maybe it's her. Something she did. Or said. You know. To attract him. Some _femme fatale_ art."

"Amanda? A _femme fatale_?"

When the others looked at her, Simone admitted. "You're right. She hardly seems the type."

"She actually seems sort of…ordinary…in most respects," Nadine offered.

The others turned, equally appalled, to Nadine.

"Well, normal, I meant!" Nadine defended. "I mean, when you talk to her, she **sounds** just like you and me. She's pretty enough, I suppose. But no **great** beauty. Of course, she is intelligent."

"I'd say so," Jenna said dryly.

"Still, **no** human can rival a Vulcan there. So whatever does he **see** in her?"

"Do you suppose she'd ever tell us?" Elspeth asked.

"What **doesn't** she have that **we** could possibly offer her?" Simone asked. "To induce such a secret from her. If one exists."

"I didn't know you had a Vulcan love interest," Jenna said to Simone, amused.

"Oh, I don't. But…such information is always…useful."

"To attract a Vulcan," Elspeth said, half sighing at the thought.

"And if it works on a Vulcan, imagine how it would on a **human**," Clara said.

At that they all sighed, and, as one, turned to gather up their things.

"I still wish I had one of those lemons," Nadine grumbled.

xxx

Darby hastened into the his office at the Terran Embassy, a little clumsy in his haste. "Na--" he nearly collided with another staff worker. "Astra. Where's--"

"Left already." Astra was chewing gum, something many humans did on Vulcan, because it helped assuage thirst. It wasn't a pretty sight, and Embassy staff weren't supposed to do so during office hours. But those hours were long over.

"Already? But--"

"She went to the pageant rehearsals. Christmas, you know." She started to blow a bubble, and thought better of it.

"Christmas." Darby laughed, a bit gutturally, but a real laugh. He repeated it, as if just getting used to it. "By God, it is Christmas isn't it? I feel like it could be Christmas every day."

Astra paused, eyeing her normally grouchy boss. "Sir?"

"I've got him," Darby said in explanation. "Or rather, I've got Helios, and with Helios, I've got enough votes, with Tellur, to put Sarek in check. I've got him, got him, got that pointed eared bastard!"

"Sir?" Astra was astonished enough that she shifted her gum to her cheek in order to be able to call out in the thin air. "Sir?"

But Darby was almost dancing as he spun toward his office, laughing in a way that embassy Terrans rarely did in the thin air on Vulcan. Oh the embassy was kept largely at Terran normal, but even that was kept on the thin side of Terran normal oxygen, human normal as it would be a few thousand feet above sea level, a grudging compromise between Vulcan planetary standards and human ones. That way, if humans did have to step out into the native air, they didn't immediately perish. And aliens weren't assaulted with too unfamiliar and hostile conditions. But it made the humans in the embassy, who often kept to the more usual Terran normal levels in their own quarters, breathe carefully and move slowly when at work. And when coming in out of the thinner native air, it could make one a little giddy. Oxygen was a lovely drug.

"Sir?" Astra looked as if she were wondering whether to call the medics, as her boss was turning in circles. He made as if to reach for her, but when she warded him off with a portable sun shield, he just as happily spun on his own.

"No Vulcan is going to pull me down," Darby said in glee, and before his astonished staffer's eyes, he waltzed out the door.

xxx

Back at the Fortress, T'Rueth, ever eager to have some new reason to showcase her spectacular talents in the kitchen, began to test Amanda's holiday recipes. She soon had the house filled with the scents of nutmeg, cinnamon, lemon zest, and peppermint, turning out such a bounty of fruitcake, cookies, and seasonal delicacies that the palace guard had beaten a path to the kitchen door like urchins outside a London bakery. Nor was Sarek immune. Amanda herself raised a pointedly reproving brow that evening as he cleared out an entire bowl of pecans frosted with a heavy glaze made of concentrated orange juice and spices. T'Rueth had brought the confections up with a request for their opinion and they both had tasted one and proclaimed their approval. And T'Rueth had gone away, well pleased, leaving the bowl on the desk where Sarek was working. He had not even realized himself what he had been doing, until his fingers, reaching into the bowl, encountered nothing but crumbs of orange glaze.

"Keep this up and you are going to need a diet, my husband," Amanda said, looking up from over the report she was writing on her compad.

"Nonsense," Sarek said loftily, though he was somewhat surprised himself at his behavior.

"Do you know how many **calories** pecans have?" Amanda asked, rhetorically. "Not even counting the sugar glaze. Eating one or two, for me, or a small handful, for you, is about all a normal diet can tolerate. Those things are **fattening**. You'll blow up like a Tellurite, keeping on that way."

"You discount Vulcan metabolism," Sarek said blithely, though he was mentally calculating how many calories he had just ingested, based on his physiological state, and the estimated volume of the bowl. And with shocked awareness, he found he couldn't quite counteract the results by metabolism alone. At least he still had some weight to make up from his recent fever.

"Well, I'd almost wish to be Vulcan if I could eat like that with impunity," Amanda said with a touch of regret. "But your metabolism and your cast iron stomach aside, I suggest you slow down…a bit. Not that I don't like the idea of …more of you to love," she added wickedly. "I've always had a fondness for …teddy bears."

Sarek just gave her a look of injured reproof.

He took himself out of the room shortly after, snatching the empty bowl on his way to return to the kitchen. Besides, a short conference with his staff seemed in order.

After a huddled conversation with T'Rueth and the head gardener, he was apprised of the unwelcome revelation that his gardens possessed only a scant pair of pecan trees. And that T'Rueth, her menus in hand, had already accounted for that limited harvest.

Sarek found this an unfortunate, highly regrettable oversight. The gardener, who had tasted himself the pecans when T'Rueth was preparing them, entirely agreed. Very short sighted. Probably a human error.

Of course they could always **buy **pecans, T'Rueth said into the fray, when Sarek was momentarily silenced by this impolitic remark. If the gardener could have blushed, he might have. As it was, the tips of his ears turned a little green.

But even Sarek, inured as he was to ignore unintended slurs, as well as he was inured to outworlder ways, found T'Rueth's suggestion as untenable as the gardener's misstatement. No, it was an unacceptable, near heretical, prospect. The Fortress, with its long memories of wars and sieges, had a history of being as self-sustaining as such a complex could be. One reason why he had never even considered importing Terran food for Amanda. Even now, they never purchased hybrid plants, that would not self seed or fruit. They grew only those that bred true. It was the Vulcan clan leader within him. If he was to take in a Terran to wife, he had, from the first, determined that they would grow what she must eat.

And now, what he would eat.

Sarek placed an order with a Terran horticultural firm for half a dozen more pecan trees, paying a considerable premium for not mere year old saplings, but five to six year old trees that would come into bearing all the sooner. Vulcans though they were, he and his co-conspirators wisely concluded that not **everything** had to come in the fullness of time.

By mutual agreement they decided they didn't need to trouble Amanda with this particular acquisition. The head gardener, his garden plans laid out before Sarek, showed the place they might be sited, and agreed she might not even **notice** them, human as she was, and much taxed with her regular duties and rehearsals on top of those. Much too taxed to be bothered with such a trivial minor acquisition. Really at this point, she was only interested in her flower gardens.

Not that Sarek had suggested actually **hiding** the trees. But while a Vulcan would instantly and absently catalog every plant in the garden, it was true Amanda didn't even know the count of her rose bushes.

The gardener stated that for a fact – why, he had he not rooted two dozen last year and lost three to tunneling litka, one a great tall hedge and she 'd not even noticed when he'd replaced it with two slightly smaller bushes – of entirely different hue? Surely such an unobservant creature would overlook even half a dozen insignificant saplings. At least until they grew. And by then she might have forgotten they hadn't always been there. Human memory being what it was.

Sarek let that pass but was not inclined to dispute it. In fact, he was rather counting on that himself.

Upon inquiry, Sarek was further assured that the Fortress produced more oranges than they could ever eat, and more than they would wish to keep in stasis, given the trees produced constantly. They actually sold the greater part of their harvest. The fact being there was more than enough of a surplus to… cover, as it were… the pecans from a few more trees.

The three conspirators went on their separate ways. The gardener went to prepare the site for his new trees with a three foot deep compost of rose leaves and fruit and vegetable rinds, manna to Terran plants. T'Rueth went to ferret out more recipes for the bounty to come, preparation being the foundation of a good cook, more than ever assured she would be the envy of all – if Vulcans would ever subscribe to such an emotion.

Sarek went for an innocent stroll to the gardens, just in case there was something else to glean of this year's nut crop. Late as it was, Vulcan's day was several hours longer than an Earth day, and this being high summer as well, there was plenty of light for a brief walk. It couldn't hurt to …examine the site of the future saplings. Besides, he could use the exercise.

Amanda, up in the main room of their suite, saw her husband walking out toward the pecan trees, and -- sparing a glance for where the incriminating bowl had been -- rolled her eyes. She **was** going to have to put her Vulcan husband on a post-holiday diet.

And shook her head. She had made the odd deserts at times, but when she was the cook in this household, at least she had spared her husband such regular indulgences. Though in truth she preferred her pecans ground up as the flour in Russian teacakes. She'd have to ask T'Rueth if **those** were on the menu. And if they were to make sure she saved some – pecans or teacakes -- from Sarek for herself.

And speak to T'Rueth about there being too much of a good thing. After the holidays. Though she wondered if it was already a lost cause.

But still, she smiled. At the very least, he'd saved **her** from that terrible bowl.

She licked her fingers in remembrance, and yawning a bit, for it was late for a human, she went back to her report. Soon enough to dream of teddy bears and sugarplums, work had to come first…

_To be continued…_


	9. Chapter 9

**A Christmas Carol**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 9**

Sarek settled into his usual seat in the back of the theater. Various humans raised their heads when he entered, some smiling a tentative welcome, others looking at him askance. He sketched a brief nod in returned greeting to all, but he had what Amanda termed his _ultra Vulcan_ mask firmly in place. That didn't invite familiarity, and if he cared to, he could see that his restrained greeting did nothing to advance himself with them. That did not concern him, for he had no interest in any other in the room. His eyes had already found the one particular human he had come to see – and hear. She was off to one side of the stage, with Porter, teaching the young children their songs. Many of them, like the boy with tousled brown hair stumbling through Tiny Tim's part were too young to read, at least music, so she was teaching by the simple expedient of singing their parts to them, and then, singing along with them, until the children were well enough versed to sing them on their own, with her occasional prompting when they faltered or forgot. One of the small children saw him, and unimpressed by Vulcans, pointed him out to her, she turned and briefly sketched a wave. Early that morning, struggling with hair that wanted to knot instead of braid, she'd asked him absently if he would be coming that evening to pick her up, because then she would not take her own flyer. And then answered herself, "Of course, you're coming, you always do", and then fretted already by too many activities in her already long day, gave up trying to braid her hair and twisted it into a French knot, Vulcan customs aside. Sarek had not commented on that breach of tradition, nor now, was he the waving type, though the rest of the smaller children were now all waving. Amanda gathered back their attention and settled them. And Sarek himself settled back to listen.

Having copied the score when he had first seen it, he had then read it through. He'd tossed that, one read sufficed to commit it to his eidetic memory. Since he had read the libretto, he could now accurately place the rehearsals within the context of the story, his reason for reading it. It helped him better understand and appreciate what he was hearing, or at least, find it less incomprehensible, human motivations not always being entirely clear to him. In that alone such activities as this were something of an education. He had begun reading the scripts since the first such pageant rehearsals when he had discovered such preparations didn't involve a straight run through of the play, but a curious scattered approach, starting and finishing scenes at apparent random – or at least by some method he could not divine. Only during dress rehearsal did the play really resemble itself as it appeared in the libretto. Or on opening night.

Over the next few weeks, Sarek expected to hear the score often enough, partly in rehearsals and hopefully partly at home. Amanda didn't consciously practice, but depending on her activities and state of mind, she did sometimes sing as she went through her day, usually brief snatches of song. Lately she had had little time for even that at home, but with the pageant, she would be more likely to do so. And now that he had read the script, he would understand what she was singing even when it was totally out of context.

But in truth, he scarcely cared whether he understood what she sang or not, so long as she would sing, and he could listen. This startling tendency – and ability – of hers was one of those things he'd discovered after his marriage. No doubt she had discovered surprising things regarding his behavior as well. Probably most she had never discussed with him, direct though she often was.

Just as he had never spoken of this to her. Nor discovered about her until they relocated to Vulcan.

xxx

When they had first married, they had lived in the embassy on Terra, which while reasonably commodious was not entirely private. They had a suite of their own, but the rest of the staff, advisors, aides, and others, lived in the same complex. He'd been aware she wasn't comfortable with that situation, but had …put up…with it, as she called it. She'd been eager to have a home of their own. Even though obtaining one meant that she would also be leaving her home planet.

Coming to Vulcan had entailed myriad culture shocks for her, much worse than for him on Terra. He at least had lived in a Vulcan environment, among Vulcans and Vulcan customs at the embassy. Amanda had arrived on a strange planet to live closely with no human associates, and was essentially entirely immersed in an alien culture. Even though she'd had some months on Terra after they'd married to adjust to his ways, this was indeed a major change. She needed some place to retreat to, to call home, though for her that still meant a Vulcan home, with a Vulcan husband.

And regardless of her acceptance of her Vulcan husband, her Vulcan home had not at all been what she'd expected or hoped for. The expressions on her face when she'd first seen the Fortress had been myriad, but discernable even to him. Shock, awe, amazement, and …dismay. Though she'd made some effort to conceal it, to put a best face on it, he'd seen her first reaction. It had been unaccountably dismay. This was not the quiet, private home she had envisioned, one that they could share together…and alone. Where she could be human

To make things worse, the overzealous Federation press that had tagged her every movement on Terra had arrived on Vulcan in force, to continue the story of her adaptation to her new world. Sarek didn't dare let her leave the Fortress without guards until he'd gotten a handle on that situation – the voraciousness of their interest had totally surprised him. But even within that huge edifice she had come to feel beleaguered, that she had no place to retreat that she could call her own.

He hadn't understood that at first. And she'd abetted his misunderstanding, gamely trying to underscore her discomfort. He could see she was becoming more and more unhappy. But he had been unable to deduce the exact cause – a novice himself at deducing emotional reasoning in a human wife. Finally, one morning after a breakfast she'd scarcely touched, he sat her down, her hands in his, and managed to coax the problem out of her.

"I thought…this was going to be **our** home."

Sarek was non-plussed. "This **is** our home. It has been one of my family's ancestral homes since--"

She frowned as an attendant entered to announce a call from the Newtonian ambassador. "I will take it later," Sarek said. "Defer all calls until further notice."

Amanda's eyes were on the Vulcan attendant that had left, chill reproof in his air.

"Amanda?"

She turned back to him, dismayed. "It is your home. But it's not **ours**."

"That is not true."

"No, it's perfectly obvious," she said, with barely repressed frustration.

"I don't understand."

"Sarek," she drew a breath, as if for a long confession. She was still struggling to adapt to the thinner air, and it was leaving her a little breathless and lightheaded. That didn't help matters. She refused to use much Triox, afraid she would never adapt. And though she had worked out in a heavy gravity gym for months before they shipped to Vulcan, a scant hour once or twice a week had not nearly prepared her for Vulcan's heavy gravity. Even he had required a day or two to reacclimatize after so many months in Terran conditions. Combining the gravity with the scant oxygen, the heat and the longer days, she didn't need personal or emotional problems to have more than enough with which to contend with on Vulcan. Unfortunately, she had those too.

The attendant entered again without preamble, Sarek's schedule in hand. "Leader, there is a request--"

Amanda actually flinched, snatching her hands back from his as if burned. And the glare she gave his aide, if understandable, could still hardly be considered proper. Or an expression Sarek could condone, however secretly he might excuse it under the circumstances. The aide merely stood his ground. And if Vulcans could glare…

Sarek looked from one to the other of them, both stubborn, both uncompromising, both so sure they were right. Amanda was breathing fast, eyes narrowed, barely spoiling for a fight. And the attendant merely looked straight ahead, as if she did not exist. Were he not Vulcan, Sarek might have had some choice words to say of his own to both such behaviors. Instead he rose, gestured the attendant out of the room and activated a seldom used door lock. Turning, he found his wife taking a cushion from behind her and throwing it at the hapless door where through the attendant had just exited. Sarek ducked in spite of himself, for she had yet to adjust for how the pull of Vulcan's heavier gravity affected thrown projectiles, and as the cushion angled down sharply it nearly struck **him**. Though if she were going to continue to express her displeasure by that means, he almost preferred she did not accustom herself, given it meant perfecting her aim.

"Amanda!" he reproved. He picked up the cushion and handed it back to her.

She took it automatically, hands crushing it in tension. "I don't care. Sarek, how can you say this is our home?"

He was even more non-plussed. "Because it is a fact."

"**They've** made it abundantly clear that nothing here belongs to me." She tossed the cushion aside. "Not even you. And I've begun to wonder if any of this even belongs to **you**."

"I assure you--"

"Oh, in practice if not in fact," she brushed that aside. "They do what they want, they go **where** they want and **we** just have to deal with it. They just **expect** us to deal with it."

Sarek tilted his head in a Vulcan negation. "My wife, they are merely doing their duty as they have always--."

"Well, they can do it a little less around me," she said truculently. "**Always** is right. 'The world is too much with us, late and soon.'"

He had become accustomed to her literary references, and after searching through his own memory, he frowned.

"You do not like William Wordsworth."

"Then it's an appropriate quote, because I don't like this."

Eyes widening as even Vulcans' can do after such a blunt remark, he got them off literature and onto a more pertinent discussion. It turned out that her human standards of privacy surpassed even Vulcan ones, at least in some respects. He was somewhat surprised at that, and then wondered why he should be. He was still guilty of making automatic assumptions regarding humans – even when it involved Amanda. He tried to remind himself to be a little less assuming in that regard.

After which he spoke to the staff and instructed them accordingly.

But the staff saw no reason to change the traditions of millennia. And he had yet to deduce the true gulf between his Vulcan staff and his human wife. His attempts at mediation had not satisfied her and, he suspected, had failed to serve his staff as well.

By this time, her emotions were running high, and Sarek thought even his staff were waging something of a private war. It was something he and Amanda hadn't quite encountered before. Unlike the Fortress staff, the embassy staff on Terra had become somewhat used to Terran ways and accustomed to the notion of Terrans in general. And they'd had time to get used to Amanda before she'd become their clan leader's wife.

But his Vulcan staff at home had no experience with Terrans. Amanda had burst upon them in all her unfamiliar humanity. She might have been a creature in a zoo for how the most conservative of his staff regarded her. And when it came to war, they had, as Amanda would have said, the home field advantage. They had the superiority of numbers, the military intelligence, as it were, in having full communications among each other. And a well known turf, a set of traditions, to protect to which Amanda was new and with which she was largely unfamiliar.

It was a war Amanda had no real chance to win, that was waged out of his sight, and of which he saw only snatches, skirmishes. And a war in which she, out of some obscure sense of honor or dignity, reticence or pride, was refusing to tell him about. He generally only saw the effects.

Knowing something was still wrong, but not sure how to resolve it, he then limited the staff in numbers, trying to ease the friction. But if anything, that only worsened the situation. The staff were more than up to this war, and were certain of victory. Amanda was not. And he saw the effects of it in his wife only too well.

She could not go outside the Fortress without being besieged by reporters, she apparently had little sense of peace within. When she wandered through the Fortress, she got lost. When she had wandered in the gardens, she'd mistakenly played with, and brought home, a pair of lematya cubs, bringing the Vulcan guard on the run to dart and remove them. He'd spoken sharply to her then, in panic at her close encounter with death, for even with treatment lematya poison was very frequently fatal. Her ignorance had been his fault but he had been very…emotional…over that near brush. Even now, decades later, the memory could make his heart speed up. He'd remedied the ignorance, but the instance had left its mark and he didn't think she'd forgiven him for his sharp words. Although she'd been trying her best to put a good face on things up until then, she'd been becoming increasingly unhappy. And that incident had been, as she might have said, the final straw that broke the mythical camel's back.

He knew then that he had to do something. Heads had rolled over the lematya incident, but his staff had been insufferably superior over the incident.

But his Vulcan staff had miscalculated, for the one thing **they** did not have , that **she** did, was him. It was an advantage that outweighed all others. But it would matter little to her if he didn't resolve things quickly. He sat her down again, with strict instructions to his staff not to enter unless the Fortress was under attack by Romulans. And finally coaxed her to talk to him, striving to understand, once and for all, what she required.

Finally she made him understand that when she said she wanted privacy, she wanted just that. Not the privacy of requesting admittance. But real privacy as in actual private quarters. Completely theirs. She requested, they discussed, and finally agreed that their suite and that wing of the house would be theirs and theirs alone. That the aides, attendants and servants to which he was accustomed would only come upon appointment, to speak to him in his office, or to do heavy household chores only when scheduled to do so. And that she would take upon herself the daily housekeeping chores that had been the purview of the now banished staff, just so that she could have their private apartments entirely, absolutely _private_.

He had finally come to understand her concept of a private home. She wanted it, she obviously seemed to need it, and she was determined to have it, even if that meant she would take over chores that to him ought to be done by servants. That she intended to, even wanted to, make beds and meals and do the most menial of tasks. Unexpected as that desire was to him, he finally understood her. It was hardly proper for his wife to take on trivial chores. It was completely outside of his expectations of what a potential matriarch would do, and a break with all tradition. But then…so was she. And Amanda had finally convinced him this was what she'd meant. And though he'd had understandable trouble accepting this odd notion, in the end, seeing her mind unchanged, realizing this was no mere human whim, but an absolute requirement for her present happiness, he had acquiesced. Puzzled and dubious, he'd respected her wishes and reorganized the household accordingly.

"Is it wrong?" she'd asked, seeing his hesitation. "Taboo or something?"

"No," he assured her. "Merely unexpected."

She made a face. "Meaning you married me expecting me to act like a VSA teacher and researcher. Not a skivvy."

Sarek hesitated. In truth, what he had expected was for her to behave like a clan leader. But he reminded himself it was not a role she had been born to. She would come to it, in time. "You **are** a teacher and researcher."

She looked at him almost hopefully. "On Terra, all sorts of people tend their own homes. With robotic help, and that sort of thing. Personal attendants are rare."

Sarek conceded that with a flick of a brow. "On Vulcan as well, in normal households. But there is a certain…tradition…associated with personal attendants on Vulcan for a clan leader."

She flushed. "I know you didn't marry me expecting a scullery maid for a wife." She gave him a look. "But you weren't exactly honest with me, were you?"

He raised innocent brows. "My wife."

"Clan leader. You rather conveniently omitted that."

"A cultural blindness. It is not something I have ever had to tell, on Vulcan."

"A living legend, are you," she said, and he was pleased to see her lips twitch in a reluctant smile.

"I'm afraid I have a certain notoriety."

"And I suppose I do too, of a less estimable type. And wanting to live something of a private life isn't going to endear me to your staff."

"No," Sarek admitted frankly. "But the staff will get over it, and in any event, I am not concerned with their emotions. If you wish this, I will not object."

"Maybe just for a while," she said. "Until I feel more comfortable."

"Of course," he'd replied.

And with that, except under certain very specific circumstances, he'd evicted the staff from the main wing of the Fortress.

And at that order, the Vulcan staff had fallen like kingpins. And to this day, he suspected they had never quite recovered. As Amanda might have said, hearing it, they could have been knocked down with a feather, even the mightiest of the Palace Guard. Because for the first time in millennia, the Fortress' staff and guard – the Fortress itself -- had been breached, conquered, taken over – and by an alien and outworlder force – and in the person of a young Terran girl. The war had been lost on their part, won on Amanda's. And even if she didn't fully understand the reverberations going through the Vulcan staff at what he had done, he did.

Vulcans were a warrior race. One thing they understood, never failed to understand, was winning. Vulcan, after all, had never known a conqueror. And Vulcan to the core, they had never conceived that they would lose. Certainly not to an outworlder, one little more than a child by Vulcan standards.

Of course, she would not have won without Sarek's backing. But what had shocked them, even more than Sarek's siding with her, was that she had stood up and demanded their exodus. They retreated in shock, never having been defeated in Vulcan memory.

Amanda had not the experience to really understand what she had wrought. But she drew a relieved breath with that exodus. And with her own portion of home turf finally carved out, she did her best to make a home for them out of it, in their own eclectic style.

With Amanda in possession of the Fortress and the staff booted to a convenient wing, the victory was only too apparent. Sarek had only to banish to lesser places the few who dared to let him see her treated with the slightest lack of respect to make her victory, in their eyes, complete. Perhaps another race of beings might have been vindictive, but Sarek's swift actions checked as well the few that succumbed to the impulse.

It was true, that Vulcans as they were, they did respect winning. He might almost smile himself to see them evaluating his small wife with amazed and considering eyes. Those that might never have been won over by any human charm, were won over by her considerable strength of will.

The staff that remained learned a valuable lesson, that humans were a force with which to be reckoned. At least this human. And that Amanda had a power of her own. They came to grant her a grudging respect, though she was far too occupied to consider it, or them. She had a new teaching career at the Vulcan Science Academy; she had a new home to make; she had a new world with which to become accustomed; new associates to meet, and a fairly new husband with whom to reacquaint herself, for Sarek was not quite the same on Vulcan as he'd been on Earth. There, he'd been adapting in some respects to local customs, at least as much as he would or could. Now returned to his home himself, he returned to his culture in earnest. And became more aware of how very human his wife was. They both had some adjustments to make in that regard.

Drastic as his solution had been to Vulcan eyes, she'd been helped by it. Once she had a place where she felt she could be herself, be _human_, outside of Vulcan standards and Vulcan expectations, she had relaxed. She stopped flinching at every open door, for there were no doors opened except by them. If still a little tentative, she started to smile again. And then, finally relaxed and secure, she blossomed in her new oasis.

And that's when it began.

The first time he had come home to hear her singing as she went about the house, her house now, he had stood amazed, frozen in place, unable to do anything but listen for uncounted minutes until I-Chiya had sensed him and come flying out, bringing her behind him. She'd been embarrassed that he had heard her, her cheeks flaming, but she had shrugged and said little. He had been too amazed himself to say much.

Vulcans did not sing. Not like that. Not out of pleasure or joy or happiness. Her voice was enthralling enough, but to hear her sing touched something deep inside him. He'd been confused himself at his own reaction, still struggling to deal with the myriad of emotions his emotional wife seemed to incite in him. And did what Vulcans do, he buried the reaction deep.

But then he discovered that now that she felt at home, one she had acclimated to Vulcan well enough to have breath for such, she sang often, as she had never done in the Vulcan Embassy on Terra. He could not have been more surprised at this unVulcan behavior. She sang most often when she was alone, or perceived she was alone, performing the routine chores necessary to maintain their household. As if in some sort of accompanying entertainment, or compensation for the tedium of those tasks. Every time he heard her, he was astounded anew.

But he continued to say little, since she seemed still …embarrassed …when she'd found he'd overheard her. He didn't fully understand that – after all, she was his wife, and they'd shared far more personal intimacies. But he did partially understand. For he had his own secrets in a similar respect. He had not suspected he could have desired her more, but hearing her sing, the knowledge that she not merely had the ability, but the inclination, and that she would do this, seemingly without volition, merely because she was…happy…totally amazed, and enthralled, him. Had he been able to, he would have indented for a wife with this behavior, had he even known such existed. But he had no need to do so. She was already his. A heady knowledge, that made him appreciate his own good fortune, unVulcan though that might be. Here was a great gift, bestowed unknown to him. Yet in his surreptitious enjoyment of her snatches of song, he also kept it, as much as he could, unknown to her. Because it was unVulcan.

And as she relaxed, she grew less self-conscious. She sang when she rose in the morning. When she made beds. When she did the necessary housekeeping chores she'd undertaken. She'd scheduled her classes so she had a day free from the Academy for housekeeping. He then had taken to working in his office in the Fortress on that day, just to hear the echoes of her songs. She sang when she cooked. Coming home in the evening, the shadows laying across the desert sands, he looked forward to hearing her voice raised in song, lifting high as if in contrast to the Eridani's fall behind the Llangons -- though often punctuated by a yelp when she nicked or burned her fingers, for she was a hasty, careless cook by Vulcan standards. He deplored and decried those accidents of hers, but in truth, he would not have her change her behavior one whit – if it meant she no longer sang. Though his Vulcan sensibilities would never allow him to admit it.

xxx

That was what he regretted most about the staff returning to the Fortress. And that too was too inestimable for his Vulcan sensibilities to allow him to confess. But now that she no longer engaged in routine chores, she sang that much less. He lost the pleasure of coming home and finding her alone in the kitchen, fussing over some meal. No longer did she schedule time at home to deal with household tasks – the trivial round, she'd called it, laughing as she characterized it so -- while he worked in his office -- sometimes setting his work aside, sitting back and listening as she sang. Often it was something from Cinderella. And in the hidden privacy of his office, he would half smile at the incongruity of it. He did not consider himself in the role of Prince Charming by any means. But Amanda always said that it was the only suitable score to sing when scrubbing a castle. And perhaps it had helped her in some respects. More than once she'd taken out her temper and her frustrations that had come with her living on Vulcan by cleaning some part of the house, or scrubbing a woebegone I-Chiya, or an even more resistant Spock, who like all Vulcans, and all small children, resisted soap and water, and had been known to flee to the Forge when he sensed a bath in the offing, his pet as his heels, feigning deafness to her calls. Cheap therapy, she'd called her housecleaning. Sarek supposed he should be grateful she'd never turned her skivvy skills toward himself.

The sole lasting disadvantage of these peculiar activities seemed to have been Spock growing up with the idea that wives played some sort of servant's role in a household. This opinion Spock had precociously volunteered when Sarek explained the need for bonding and the purpose of wives, at least in such a way as appropriate for a young child. Spock had assured him he knew this, blithely agreeing that every Vulcan male would need someone to cook and clean for him. Appalled, Sarek had tried to dissuade his son of that notion, and quickly, before Amanda heard it voiced and attributed it to him. But it was difficult for any perceptive child to disregard the evidence of his senses. He saw his mother did those things, and his father did not. When Sarek had countered that observation with the assertion that this was simply something his mother chose, but not necessarily something that a Vulcan wife would choose, Spock had then deduced that it was only human wives who were servants. That made a nightmarish situation even worse. Sarek could just imagine Amanda's reaction should Spock inform his mother his father had taught him **that**. In trying to backtrack from that disaster and explain something of the circumstances that made Amanda choose this, Sarek somehow got it turned around so that Spock thought this behavior was something only appropriate for a clan leader's wife. Which totally flabbergasted his Vulcan father. Sarek had finally given up at that point. And hoping to head off an explosion, raised the …difficulty… with Amanda, thinking perhaps, as it was her behavior, **she** could explain it more coherently in a way the child would finally understand. But she'd just laughed.

"Soon enough for his own wife to teach him otherwise. After she has a good laugh."

Sarek just raised a doubtful brow. "I don't think T'Pring will be laughing, my wife."

She looked a little truculent at that. Her opinion of T'Pring had never been high. "Let's just let him keep the misconception, then. An afternoon spent scrubbing would do that girl nothing but good. I wouldn't mind watching while he explains it to her. And puts a sponge in her lily green hand."

"Amanda." Sarek shook his head at her caustic tone.

Amanda shrugged the problem aside. "Oh, he's only seven, Sarek. I'll set him straight when he's a bit older."

Sarek sighed and agreed, but he wasn't sure Spock had ever modified his curious notions.

But then again, his father had his own heretical notions that he held onto. He had never broken himself of the habit of desiring his human wife's song.

Illogical as it was for a Vulcan to admit, the present state of his household was somewhat disappointing to him. His banishment of their Vulcan staff had turned out to have been a rather idyllic period, in retrospect. He had not understood Amanda's distress when she'd first come to Vulcan, but now, he did. Even as she seemed to have gotten past the need for such ultimate privacy, he had come to realize he missed some aspects of their lost intimacy, had not fully appreciated it, in fact, until the situation had changed.

But he was wrong regardless, more wrong than his son had been. For that had merely been the misconception of a child. His own misdeeds were those of illogical and emotional behavior. That alone should shame his Vulcan sensibilities. But far worse was that the emotions involved -- his emotions -- were of a distressingly pre-Reform nature, something that he, _especially_ he, was doubly obliged to suppress and control. He had not forgotten the dangers of _vrie_.

Passion **was** allowed in a marriage bond, but traditionally it was passion of a specific type, suitably expressed only in the normal …relations… between husband and wife. This passion fell outside that restriction. And thus it was something he should, even must, control. Forgiving as Amanda was in so many respects, he didn't think she would appreciate this heretical desire.

For more than once in his marriage, he had…almost… found himself regretting his wife's professional career. Only almost. Vulcan disciplines served him that much. His were certainly shamefully unVulcan thoughts. For his wife sang most often when she was doing tedious manual chores. Given her career, she had little time for singing. But if she had been, for example, a skivvy, a scullery maid, as she sometimes teasingly called herself in relation to those chores… Well, she might sing all day, every day.

Every time he caught himself thinking such thoughts he forced himself to back to Vulcan disciplines, to review the myriad logical benefits of his wife's academic career, compared to the superfluity of her dealing with mundane tasks – balanced against his own personal satisfaction in hearing her sing. A logical argument that could not be faulted.

Now more than ever. For those days were over. They had a full kitchen staff now, and a full household staff. The time that she had spent caring for the household – and singing while she did -- she had now turned over entirely to her professional duties, even as she had turned the household duties over to the staff. And when she was reading, or studying or writing papers, naturally, of course, she was concentrating fully. And she did not sing.

With her added council duties, she had even less time, and less opportunity now, for moments of song.

And he did regret that, though it was not merely illogical. It was positively pre-Reform for such thoughts to cross his consciousness. Unacceptable for him to actually have moments of wishing his wife to do mindless work. And doubly illogical given the reason was that she would engage in the purely human, illogical behavior of singing as she did it. And that he would be able to listen as she did it.

That was what made him, even as he relished the sound of her voice in song, bury his external reactions deep in Vulcan disciplines. He was, after all, a modern, logical Vulcan. Logical in most areas. In all areas, save to do with his marriage and his human wife. But with her, try as he would, illogical reactions continually surprised him. Even outside of the natural relations between bondmates he caught himself amazed by his heretical desires. And some desires should be controlled. His wife was a brilliant scholar and teacher. In addition, she fulfilled an important advisory role in his own Federation work. It was entirely inappropriate for him to wish her to give up even one hour of her real duties for menial chores… merely because in doing so she might sing.

And yet, there were times, particularly listening to her voice, that he could wish it.

Hence what she called his _Vulcan face_. She was perceptive enough to sense something, even if not to see what it concealed. But he could hardly countenance his admiration for her voice without acknowledging the desire that accompanied it. So he concealed both, and Amanda did not know. At least he trusted she did not know. If his _Vulcan face_ served him at all.

But it made this pageant season all the more precious to him. More so now than ever.

Though the first time she had broached the subject to him, he had not known what to expect. He had of course, been to a few dramatic performances on Terra, part of the social round. But the terminology was confusing. Amanda spoke of this being a _play_. He understood that was ostensibly merely a dramatic performance. But he also knew that she also called the intimate games they sometimes indulged in _play_. So he'd been a trifle wary. And had accompanied her just to ensure, to see for himself, exactly what kind of _play _wasactually involved in this activity

When he understood it involved music, singing, specifically his wife singing, that was all he needed to know. A _play_ meant new songs. A play meant his wife would sing, would practice, these new songs at home, as well as in scheduled rehearsals. It meant weeks where the level of music, of song in his household, and for his ears, increased. After he understood that, well, she would have been hard-pressed to get out of it, if he had any say in the decision. Though he did not, would not, allow himself one. It was purely her decision to participate in these activities. He would not influence her. He would not betray, not by a flicker of expression, his own thoughts on the matter. Heretical though they could be. And were, to a Vulcan such as himself. Another reason for his _Vulcan face,_ as Amanda called it.

But if she was going to do participate, if she was going to sing for others, well, **he** was going to listen. He was her husband and **that** much he would grant himself.

And far from forbidding such a proposal, every year, he was grateful anew for this illogical Terran holiday season. One that brought presents even to Vulcans.

Though if he had any control at all, he would conceal **that** behind a proper Vulcan countenance too. Both the pleasure and the gratitude.

He sat listening, his face revealing nothing.

xxx

"He's out there again," Clara whispered to the others. Amanda was going through the trios with the two Scrooges, and the rest of the cast was at leisure.

Nadine put her head around a scrim and shook her head. "Why does he come? To sit there, night after night, like a statue. Not a crack on his face. With most Vulcans you can discern a **little** expression.

"Maybe it means he's concealing one all the more," Simone said, thoughtfully. As a spy, she was well aware of subterfuges.

Nadine did a double take, then shook her head. "Not Sarek of Vulcan."

"No, I suppose not," Simone admitted. And turning away, they let the curtain drop back in place.

And on stage, ostensibly singing to the two Scrooges, Amanda's eyes cut to her husbands'. And she smiled, just a little. But as the old human saying went, she saved her breath to swell her song. This was Vulcan, after all.

_To be continued…._

15


	10. Chapter 10

**A Christmas Carol**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 10**

Nadine breezed into the rehearsal auditorium, clearly more up than she had been in weeks. She was wearing reindeer antlers, a little battered and missing one prong in their interplanetary journey, but still recognizable, with green witch ball ornament earrings. Daring the Vulcan season in favor of the representative Terran one, she also wore an intarsia knitted sweater with a large picture of a reindeer on it tied loosely around her shoulders.

"Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, and peace to all **men** of good will," Nadine said, hitting the _men_, as in _Earthmen_, with a definite emphasis.

"You're certainly cheery."

"Things look like they are letting up at work. And about time too." She looked across at Amanda with a slight smirk. "Though they may be heating up for someone else."

"What do you mean?"

"I think a certain Vulcan is going to find his plans gone awry," Nadine said with relish.

"For shame," Jenna said, her motherly face round with concern. She'd returned from her conference and was catching up in the role of Tiny Tim's mother. "It is Christmas."

"I thought you fancied Sarek," Elspeth said, coming over from where she'd been painting snowflakes on scenery panels.

"Me!" huffed Nadine.

"Peace on Earth," Jenna reminded her.

"This is Vulcan," Nadine said, scowling at Jenna, unrepentant. She wondered sourly how Jenna could be so zaftig on Vulcan, when human-style foods were so expensive. And when every extra ounce carried felt like five pounds. "And he was ruining **my** peace at Christmas. Stirring up **my** boss."

"We shouldn't bring business into these gatherings. It's unkind."

"Serves Sarek right. It's time he lost a round! And we don't get much chance to derail Sarek's plans, certainly not here on Vulcan. So I'm going to savor it, like the Christmas present it is!"

"Enough of this," Elspeth said, looking around, seeing that in spite of being surrounded by caroling kids, Amanda couldn't have helped hearing some of the last. She was looking over, her usual smile when at these rehearsals replaced with a slight puckering of her brow.

Simone glared at Nadine, with all the weight of her previous security forcer career behind it. "It's Christmas, damn it! And this event is supposed to be a neutral zone for humans on Vulcan. Leave your squabbles in politics or trade or what have you at the fleckin' door!"

"All right! But I wager **she** won't have much to sing about, once Sarek gets ahold of Darby's plans," Nadine said before subsiding. But she couldn't resist looking across at Amanda with a smirk and a significant "take that" nod, before turning her back.

xxx

Amanda hadn't heard all of it, but one advantage of long time acclimation to Vulcan's thin air was that her hearing had become more acute. She was used to scowls and smirks from some of the human diplomatic staff. But that 'take that' nod seemed to mean something more.

And Sarek **was** late. Much later than was usual for him, so loath was he to miss a rehearsal. Amanda kept eyeing the door, watching for him, walking through her role half absentmindedly, causing Chris to snap at her.

"I know you aren't that fond of the part, Mandy, but this is a **rehearsal**. **Not** a read through. Try putting a little emotion into it."

"Maybe she's gone Vulcan on you," Nadine said with innocent malice. "Or maybe she **can't** sing. Not without her handsome husband to sing to," Nadine said, pleased that both her points wounded Chris, if not Amanda.

Their director scowled at her, sparing a half glare for the empty seat Sarek usually occupied. Everyone in the company who knew Chris had a slight crush on Amanda found somewhere else to look.

"I wonder **what** could be holding Sarek up," Nadine continued, twisting the knife. "He's usually here, isn't he Amanda? He's never been **this** late. Here we are, almost done for the night. Something significant must have come up." She smirked, then choked as Simone, passing by her, surreptitiously kicked her in the ankle.

"Just swallow it down, dear," said the erstwhile motherly Jenna, following up Simone's ankle kick by pounding hard on Nadine's back, causing her to double over again. "Then you won't have **cause** to choke."

"Are you well, Nadine?" Amanda asked mildly, amused in spite of her mild worry for Sarek at her erstwhile defenders.

"I'm all right!" Nadine flared, breaking away from her tormentors and glaring at them and Amanda both. "We were talking about Sarek!"

"I'm sure he has a good logical reason for whatever's keeping him." Amanda refused to be drawn, but with this reminder her mask slipped a little, as she eyed the door again in consternation.

"I think we **are** done," Chris said, looking with vexation at his polarized company. "Let's wrap for tonight. But be here all the earlier tomorrow. He turned to Amanda, half hopeful. "If you need a ride home -"

But Amanda's vigil was rewarded as Sarek walked in. Her welcoming smile would have rivaled Terran sunshine. But it left Chris stalking away grumbling anew.

xxx

"You're very late," Amanda said as she and Sarek went out into the Vulcan warm summer evening.

"Your rehearsal has terminated early," Sarek noted. "But yes, something delayed me."

Amanda looked up at her husband, but Sarek looked the same to her. His Vulcan face intact. That was nothing new, but she'd suddenly realized there might be a different reason for his poker face than mere Vulcan reserve in the company of sundry humans. Was he covering up his disappointment at a devastating defeat? And she so stupidly caught up in her own amusements that she hadn't even noticed?

"Sarek…everything **isn't** all right. Is it?"

Her Vulcan husband, torn out of whatever thoughts he had been perusing, looked down at her. "Indeed not. And you are correct, I have possibly been inattentive to you, in considering certain unfortunate occurrences."

"I thought so-"

"A devastating pulsar star is causing the evacuation of an entire system in the Thegan quadrant. The Romulans have been skirmishing again on the Orion sector of the Neutral Zone. The Blue Death, while arrested, has caused a dangerous devaluation of the Andorian Zar against the Tellurian Xrat, destabilizing the economy of twelve-"

She blew out a frustrated breath. Perhaps, if she let him drone on, he might eventually get to the real source of her concern, but with a Vulcan's attention to minutia, and her short lifespan, she might be dead by then. "I meant with you!"

"With me? Whatever can you mean, my wife? I am quite well."

"I meant…" Amanda faltered, realizing that though Vulcan, Sarek was both male and proud. He wouldn't take to admitting defeat too well, even to, perhaps especially to a wife. She decided to approach it in a roundabout way. "Well, I meant with your work."

"Indeed. The events I mentioned directly affect my work in that they have an immediate impact on Federation political climate-"

"And of **course** you'll have an impact on those things," Amanda soothed, wondering how a Vulcan wife might bolster a Vulcan husband after a rare, if almost unthinkable defeat. Vulcans weren't easily conquered so she had nothing to refer to as a guide. "You're a **brilliant** Ambassador."

Sarek stopped and regarded her rather as if she'd just grown another head. "Are you attempting to flatter me, my wife?"

Amanda bit her tongue before she said something definitely unVulcanwifely and unsupportive to a Vulcan just shorn of a win. "No, of course not."

Sarek just flicked a brow at that.

"I meant- Just with this Elenian thing," she said, daring to name it and wishing that for once, Sarek would just **talk** about things that upset him. "I just want to let you know, I'm **here** for you, if you need me. To talk. Or anything."

"I believe we have talked about that quite enough."

Amanda winced inwardly. His tone had been entirely neutral. Indifferent. Perhaps too indifferent leading her to wonder if he was suppressing dangerous emotions. "Well, I know it's a difficult situation."

"One you needn't be concerned about," Sarek said dismissively.

Amanda moved from biting her tongue to her lip, at this sign that Sarek was …what? Being all stiff upper lip about it? Trying to spare her? Trying to hide from her what he really felt? Trying to hide his defeat from her? **That** she couldn't really believe, but what did she really know of Vulcan emotion? She only knew she had learned more than a few unpleasant lessons recently about trying to force emotions past Vulcan control. She wasn't so stupid to repeat a mistake. Maybe she should just let her Vulcan be Vulcan. She realized she was nibbling her lower lip in anxiety and let it go, forcing her own face to a facsimile of Vulcan calm. If he didn't care to talk, he didn't **have** to talk.

"If you're sure."

"Quite sure."

That was definite, but Amanda couldn't let go so easily. He might want to talk about it in the future, when he wasn't…well, whatever he was now. "I'm always here, you know. If you want to discuss it. To help, however I can."

Her husband looked down at her, a trace of surprise and then slight exasperation coloring his features. "Amanda," he said, in what she recognized as his long suffering _my wife is so human _voice, "you are surely overtaxed enough at present with your **own** duties. I suggest you concentrate on those. And on getting sufficient rest to pursue all these extracurricular activities in which you have embroiled yourself."

Amanda drew her chin up at what felt like a definite reproof, starting to be miffed herself. So much for her. "If that's what you want."

"Indeed. The subject is well in hand. Not worth nearly so many words."

Well, he couldn't be plainer than that. Whatever he was struggling with, he didn't want her help and he didn't want to discuss it with her. "All right then," she said. "I won't mention it again." _To you_, she thought privately. _You stubborn, pigheaded, stiff-necked PROUD Vulcan, too machismo to confide or take a little comfort from your long suffering HUMAN wife, when she offers it._

_But I'll find out anyway_, she thought to herself. _And I __**will**__ help_.

xxx

She checked on Carter Breannan, of the United Free Colonies, by the simple expedient of giving his wife Carolyn a call. Caro was usually one of the Christmas party cast. But this year, hugely pregnant, in Vulcan's gravity she was on virtual bed rest.

"Bless you, Amanda. It's so good to hear a fresh voice. I feel like I'm under house arrest," Caro said cluelessly, missing Amanda's wince at her own too recent escape from that fate.

"We miss you. It isn't the same without you. Will you at least be coming to the cast party?" Amanda asked.

"I wish. I could dearly use a party. But I don't dare trying to even make it to the performance, this year," Caro said. "Not if I want to maintain this precarious status between two children and three until the little beggar is really due."

Amanda chatted about inconsequentials for a few more minutes, before Caro herself brought up the point.

"Just between you and me, Amanda, I'm glad we're on Sarek's side with this Elenian thing," Carolyn confided. "I don't generally give a fig for politics, and maybe it's a bit anti-Terran to say so. But fair's fair, you know. With the whole mostly Human Starfleet behind them, they ought to be able to rustle up planets to colonize from uninhabited systems. I know Carter feels the same, not just politically, but personally. Oh! Mandy forgive me, but between the baby and this heavy gravity planet, I've just **got** to go!"

Amanda let her, simultaneously crossing the UFC off her mental list. She put her head in her hands, closing her eyes, mentally running through systems and their representatives. She couldn't imagine who it could be. She'd checked on all the likely possibles. And she couldn't imagine any of Sarek's usual allies deserting him in this.

She sighed and decided it was time to beard another telepath in her den. She posted herself out during her usual office hours and went seeking Linnea.

Amanda tried not to be jealous as she let herself through the gate of the Thendaran embassy. Set in the foothills of the Llangons, like her home, it was everything she would have wanted, had she not been required by Vulcan tradition to live in a Vulcan castle cum historic preservation site instead of a real home. Filled with kids, ponies, sehlats, a swimming pool that predated her own by decades, a few tame and curious hawks, comfortable well worn furniture, sandy floors, wet footprints, and enough children to fill a preschool.

Linnea offered her tea, and sent those children that hung around hoping for handouts from the laden tea-table off to their respective tutors and governesses.

"Gaynor has grown so fast," Amanda said, looking after Linnea's youngest as he was borne away howling.

"I'll remind myself of that, when he taxes me," Linnea said, but she was perceptive enough not to comment on the fact that Amanda hadn't seen him much.

Amanda bit her lip, sternly reminding herself she'd married Sarek not knowing if she'd **ever** be able to bear his children. And that she did have one wonderful son. It had to be enough.

"Borrow him," Linnea said, inclining her head toward the departed Gaynor. "Fostering is in my culture. And Regan is already saying he could use a little Vulcan discipline. Though I'm sure you'd return him before nightfall."

"Don't tempt me," Amanda said, her voice a little rough around the edges with emotion.

"Then adopt," Linnea said.

"It's not that Sarek would be **against** me adopting a human child. I think he'd be a wonderful father, much better than with Spock, without all their heirship baggage that hung over them. But I want my husband's children. I think I'm spoiled enough not to want to settle for anything else."

"You are a romantic."

"Or a fool," Amanda said, brushing away a scant tear. "It's all right, Linny. I don't cry over every kid. You just happen to have exactly the life I had hoped for when I married Sarek."

"It must have been something important to bring you to me." Linnea said, knowing full well Amanda avoided her for the very regret she now faced.

"You don't already know?" Amanda asked, eyeing Linnea's grey streaked copper hair, the sign, on her world, of an exceptional telepath.

"I wouldn't pry. And your shields are very good, even when you are upset."

Amanda shrugged. "It's this Elenian thing. Sarek wouldn't tell me, but I know he's upset about something."

Linnea shrugged. "Regan **was** a trifle bothered by Ning's duplicity-"

"Ning!" Amanda breathed in shock. "Ning?! I would never, never have suspected her of something like that! Why she's part of our inner circle of friends! She comes to our parties -"

"Now, Amanda,"

"As often as I have had her in a guest in my home, given her carte blanche to browse to her heart's content in **my** **garden**!"

"Amanda, these things happen in politics -"

"Well, politic or not," Amanda said, outraged, "I **will** have a thing or two to say to her!" And she finished her cup of tea and took her leave.

_To be continued…_


	11. Chapter 11

**A Christmas Carol**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 11**

She sought Ning out at her consulate and discovered she was at the Federation Center. She literally ran her down there as she was just on the brink of leaving. The Helio being was just outside the building's wide shaded portico, her magnificent wings on the beginning of a downsweep that even in Vulcan's heavy gravity would launch and take her meters away in a moment.

"Ambassadress Ning!" Amanda drew up breathlessly, lightheaded in the heat and nearly fainting from her dangerous run. "Do you have a moment?"

Ning paused in the half crouched pose she used before launching flight and slowly straightened. "Well. I **was** just going for a mid-day feed."

Amanda pushed some strands of hair off her profusely perspiring forehead, thoughts of an ice-water from the Federation Commissary a tantalizing mental mirage, even though she knew the only safe place to have a discussion like this was outside in the Vulcan heat, away from prying ears and hidden microphones. She was sure the Federation Building was bugged up to its roof tiles by every possible faction. Except the Vulcans. Perhaps. "Might I buy you a stem of nectar?"

"That is kind of you, but as you know, I prefer my nectar fresh. And actually have a new heliotrope in my garden scheduled to open in bloom at mid-day today that I'm anxious to taste. Nothing fresher than a just opened bloom. And the heat of this planet is not conducive to maintaining that state long. So if you don't mind-"

"I won't keep you long, then, but please - I have to ask you something."

"Very well. Speak then."

"Not here," Amanda said, eying the building and its ornamental gardens, around whose statuary and plantings listening devices could be so easily concealed. Ning followed her away from the building's facade, those pretty and ornamental court plantings and oh so convenient benches, so welcoming in Vulcan's heavy gravity, to a bare bit of waste ground where nothing grew or lurked. Certainly not concealed listening devices.

"Maybe I don't have any right to bring this up," Amanda began.

"As a friend, you have claim to my attention." Ning straightened up to her considerable height, towering a good foot above Amanda's head, and pointed all her feelers towards the human in what Amanda had always taken to be a Helios posture of polite attentiveness. From a distance, Ning could look positively fairy-like. Close up, her visage could be truly terrifying.

Amanda looked at her in disbelief at that characterization, "A friend. Ning, I know I'm supposed to be politic. Normally I **am**. I can hold to it under anything – usually. And I know politics and friendship don't mix," she laughed shortly, "I know that better than anyone. Not even humans manage it very well when they do –"

"What are you saying, Amanda?" Ning asked impatiently, her anterior feelers and all her fine haired antenna waving. "I cannot discern your meaning at all from this web of conflicting impulses."

Amanda flared. "I'm saying even so, all friendship aside, you made a pact with the Alliance! How could you go against what you'd sworn! And especially considering that Sarek – well that **we've** always considered you a friend. That makes it all the worse. And now to speak to me of friendship!"

Swifter than human eyes could react, Amanda suddenly found herself raised up to Ning's height and pinned by oversize insect legs, with a cutting appendage, a six foot serrated sword, pressed up against her throat. Above her head, Ning's normal visage drew back to reveal a maw large enough to snap off her head in an instant, rimmed by a terrifying array of teeth. Thus do the females of Helios decapitate their male partners after mating - as well as dispatch any number of other prey.

"I think you have spoken enough," Ning said, her accent mangled by her configuration to whistling sibilants.

For a moment, Amanda thought she was done for. All her life, all her struggles, she and Sarek and Spock, lost in one insane altercation with a being whom she'd always considered a close friend and associate. She regretted the solitude she had sought for this confrontation, for it meant no one could see and come to her aide. But more than even Ning's serrated toothed visage looming above her, she thought of Sarek. His face took precedence in her mind even over the one her senses recorded. Poor Sarek. How he would grieve. He might never recover from their broken bond. And poor Spock. Distant as he was, she thought he needed her still. And without her to buffer between himself and Sarek, would he ever reconcile with his father? Would they find each other in grief, or would they remain forever separated?

Her breath was coming fast and shallow enough for hyperventilation, but she couldn't breathe too deep or the blade tight against her throat would sink those extra few centimeters. But then she felt the razor sharp sword tighten against her throat as she began to lose the battle of consciousness, becoming a dead weight. Dead, being the operative word.

And as if the deed were done, abruptly she was unpinned, released, falling hard in the heavy gravity to a heap in the sand below. Her mouth filled with blood; her head whirled.

She put her hand to her throat instinctively, as if to ineffectually staunch the slice to her carotid artery. Instead of the stickiness of blood, however, she found the slickness of sweat. As for her mouth, she discovered she had merely bitten her tongue hard in her heavy gravity fall. She peered up at Ning, tall as a tree planted in the desert. For a moment they stared at each other. Then, Ning's terrifying maw receded and her normal visage, terror and beauty combined, reappeared. The sight of that horror being reabsorbed was almost enough to send Amanda spiraling into the black depths of the faint that was attempting to claim her. But she fought against it.

"Careful, little human," Ning said, her sibilants greatly reduced now that she had concealed her hunting maw. "I am **no** Tinkerbelle."

With her hand still pressed against her throat, Amanda gasped, fighting for oxygen in the thin air as if she were any unacclimated human newly come to Vulcan.

"Thank you for not killing me," Amanda finally choked out, though she still felt no desire to get to her feet. "Sarek would have grieved."

"And I believe you have given him enough grief," Ning said. "You are too fierce." She took Amanda's hand in what passed for hers. "These are not claws," she said, holding up Amanda's hand with its short, neat fingernails. She tilted up her chin. "Nor have you teeth to serve as weapons. Or indeed, **any** natural weapons. You Terrans are defenseless as larvae, as grubs. You even **look** like a grub, Amanda."

"Thanks," Amanda said crossly.

"Once such as you should not attempt to take on those of Helios - or Vulcan for that matter. Save your Challenges for your own kind."

Amanda rubbed her temples. "Perhaps I should. I know that I've broken every rule in the book of politics. Just tell me why!"

"You are an interesting creature. But I don't understand why you seek to challenge me."

"You told Darby you'd support Terra!"

"Ah, that. Indeed, that I did." Ning said with satisfaction. She rustled the legs and wings Amanda had crushed and disturbed when she'd been pinned against them. Ning began to absently comb through the downy hairs with a special grooming claw on one of her appendages, veiling her eyes with a nictating membrane against the wing dust she stirred up. "A good morning's work, that. I am surprised. I thought you would be pleased to know he swallowed those words as happily as an amphibianoid gulps down a fly."

"I'm sure he did! But I don't count my allegiances with my birth planet. Not always. How could you promise Darby when you had already sworn to the Alliance?"

"But Amanda… " Ning paused in her grooming and unveiled her eyes. "I have no intention of going against the Alliance, or my sworn word to Sarek. How ridiculous of you to believe such. Terran though you are, I thought you more discerning."

Amanda's mouth dropped open in shock. "You weren't induced by some better deal Darby offered you?"

It was hard to imagine how Ning's immobile insectivoid face registered disgust, but somehow it did. "Certainly not."

"But then," Amanda struggled to understand. "You lied."

"To Darby? Of course. The wonder is, that he believed it." Ning shrugged out her wings, and then began to rake her grooming claw down on the other side. "Humans! One wonders how they could conquer what sectors of the galaxy they presently hold."

"But your professional reputation-" Amanda's jaw dropped open.

Ning paused again in her grooming and regarded Amanda intently, waving all her feelers. "Do you not understand my motivations? And, Amanda, if you wish to eat that insect, you must bring out your **tongue**, not just open your mouth. It has little wit, but you can't expect it to fly in, any more than Darby should expect colonies to fall into Terra's maw. But humans aren't natural insectivores, are you? And you need not feel inhibited on my account. My species doesn't consider itself threatened by a little cannibalism."

Realizing she was resembling a guppyfish, Amanda closed her mouth and tried to otherwise compose her stunned expression. "No. I don't understand."

Ning rubbed some of her many legs together in mild annoyance. "I think in some respects, Sarek is right. Humans are still very much children. At least, Amanda, **you** are speaking very much as a child. Surely, just because you are also Terran, **you** are not entirely like Darby, so gullible as to believe mere words, without conviction, without an emotive, and empathic background, not **you**, who I know have at least some **little** psi skills."

"You mean, you deliberately deceived him - to his face?"

"Indeed. I am rather proud of the cleverness of using **such** an alien device. And a Terran tactic, too, against one of their own. But it worked. My first time too." Ning preened herself. "I am an excellent Ambassadress."

"It's nothing to be proud of," Amanda said, simultaneously relieved and appalled. "How could you?"

"How could I not, given the circumstances? Darby lied to **me**, Amanda. In my Embassy, straight to my person! And in addition, the Terran position on this is a falsehood in itself, a violation of all their sworn principles. One falsehood I might consider an unavoidable mistake, in this confusing universe we inhabit. But two must be considered intentional deceit."

"Fool me twice, shame on me," Amanda said.

"Exactly. Such a doubly false creature does not deserve the respect that honestly entails. He was paid in kind."

"Hoist on his own petard," Amanda said, while she digested this more thoroughly. "I didn't know one could not lie to those of Helios."

"Since you have never sought to lie to me, why would you have discovered this? Nor would it be a tactic conceived by those of Helios, since we would discern the truth in any case."

"But to use such alien tactics yourself against another-"

"His tactics. Against himself. Now, they will go to the negotiating table thinking they have the support they need. They will not seek it elsewhere, believing the votes are in hand. So we need not deal further with their attempts to sway others. But in truth, they will lack the necessary support, and their proposal will fail."

"But how can you negotiate in good faith with others in the future, with them knowing that your word-"

Ning laughed like a tinkling of glass. "But that is the point. In **good** faith – which requires adhering to one's word on both sides. The Terrans have broken with their sworn principles in violating system autonomy. Perhaps with this object they will learn better in future. In that regard, my actions were justice themselves."

"By your deception, they are hoist by their own petard," Amanda said, beginning to understand. She shook her head. "But Ning what you're doing. It's just…not done."

"Nonsense." Ning shook out her other wing and regarded it critically. "It is done, all the time in Federation politics. Often by Terrans who wish to be taken at their 'good faith'."

Amanda cleared her throat, and not entirely due to the parching dryness of a Vulcan midsummer. She'd just inhaled a bit of Helio feather. "Maybe it's done, but it's not considered ethical. Is it worth that to you, to be considered, well, a breaker of promises?"

"I have never understand how Terrans can give lip service, as they say, to one set of negotiating practices that they hold others to, and yet break their own rules in every other conceivable way. And may I point out, Amanda, that it is Vulcans who hold such store by their honor. Those of Helios do not wear their supposed "honor" like a medal or in the Vulcan's case, a shield against their baser selves. We are flighted beings, who see things from afar, in less grounded perspective."

Amanda sighed and sat down in a heap. "I'm supposed to be an expert in interpreting alien behavior. And yet, only too often, I come to believe I don't understand anything."

"Good," said Ning.

She raised shocked eyes to the Helios being.

"You are Terran, in spite of all your years on Vulcan. So you make a good test case," Ning explained. "My deception thus should hold."

"I'm not sure I appreciate being cast as the human village idiot," Amanda said darkly. "However conveniently it serves. Though I suppose sometimes that's my role in Federation politics. And I guess I'm Vulcan enough to put up with quite a lot in the name of duty."

"Not just Vulcan. Amanda, do not think I believe that **all** humans are inestimable."

"Thanks. I think. But… doesn't it bother you – for you to win this way?" She stared at Ning, puzzled and distressed. "You don't feel that it, well, damages you? It would me."

"I am not Vulcan."

Amanda's look of inquiry deepened, "Come again?"

"Nor am I Human."

Amanda shook her head. "Again, please?"

"You hold the Human view that those with whom you are allied - and who hold your esteem - also share your intrinsic values." Ning's multifaceted eyes whirred and glittered. "To play fair. To be forthright."

"Well, yes. Honesty is usually best. And that's partially why I hold them in esteem."

"Even for those who forswear their own oaths, break faith without qualm?"

"Yes," Amanda said firmly. "Their ignoble behavior is no excuse to sully my own."

Ning veiled her multifaceted eyes briefly, as if momentarily shutting out an unpleasant sight. "But that is a peculiarly species dependent value system, Amanda. Something Vulcans espouse, and humans aspire to. Or at least outwardly profess, even if their actions speak otherwise. But in **my** species, those who break faith deserve to be paid in kind."

Amanda pursed her lips disapprovingly. "An eye for an eye is a dangerously slippery slope to try to descend."

"Perhaps for those who walk, human. We of Helios fly."

"Well, there you have me. But you know what I mean."

"Yes. And I understand your cultural expectations however imperfectly you Humans practice them. But despite my appearance, and however you and other humans have occasionally regarded me and others of my species, I am not the 'Tinkerbelle' you sometimes take me for."

Amanda bit her lip against a scapegrace grin. "I consider my nose duly rubbed in my own cultural expectations. And you're right. I do consider you a friend, mine and Sarek's. And right or wrong, I do expect you to share something of my own value system. My own criteria for honor being part of that." She shook her head, a bit amazed. "I suppose I should apologize, though I don't understand how in general, even beings who deal with other beings can operate too widely out of their inherent precepts. I still don't understand how this isn't a problem for you. I know that you're an honorable being. Usually."

"Indeed. To those, such as Sarek and yourself, who espouse honor in kind. To those that do not," Ning lifted a newly groomed wing, gossamer in appearance and beautiful, but also turned one of her many "arms" or forelegs to display on the dorsal side the serrated edging, a combination of teeth and files, useful in many purposes, to make calls in mating time, like a bow over a violin string, but also at mating time, when a Helio female left off her largely nectivarious diet, she used her swordlike forelegs to capture and kill prey.

Amanda eyed the razor sharp files, and nodded. "I shouldn't be surprised. In truth, the real Tinkerbelle was quite a hellion too."

"Should I be flattered?"

"I don't know." Amanda looked deep into Ning's multifaceted eyes. "I do know it's wrong of me to make a personal appeal, but ... I don't want to see Sarek hurt or thwarted, particularly when he's right - and he **is** in this. Forgive me for asking, but by my cultural standards, you've dissembled at least once, with cause, or not. Can I really trust you in this?"

"Humans always look for truth in another's eyes," Ning commented absently, studying the earnest blue ones piercing her. "Darby did as much to me."

"I'm sure he did."

"What do you see in mine?"

Amanda set her mouth against disappointment. "Myself."

"And **that** he failed to understand, as you do now. You are sincere, Amanda. So is Sarek. As you are, so I am. That is the difference between us. You will not see me in my eyes. You see yourself. Do you understand now?"

Amanda drew a breath half in relief, half in comprehension.

"That is the answer. You **see**," Ning put the slight emphasis on the word, "that you have now nothing to fear for Sarek from me. Or the Alliance that he heads."

"Thank you. For that. And for the education."

"No," Ning settled her wings with a business-like rustle. "It is I who must thank you. It is always more pleasant to deal with those who are sincere. It makes ones dealings much simpler. It is **so** tedious to deal with dissemblers. Though," Ning folded her wings to pre-flight stance, "I don't understand why humans even try to be duplicitous. What you don't reveal on your faces, bleeds over into your thoughts, even your auras. It is rather pointless of you even to attempt to deceive."

"Telepaths," Amanda said, shaking her head with a rueful smile. "Forgive me, Ning, if I tell you that at times, just at times, you understand, I do grow heartily sick of telepaths."

"Forgive me, Amanda, for not realizing that at times, even the humans we befriend can fail to understand our true meaning, lacking telepathy. Of course, I assumed Sarek would have assured you of these truths—

"Sarek!" Amanda's eyes widened and her jaw dropped as the implications of what Ning was saying sunk in. "Sarek knew – he **knew** that you were with him all the time?"

"Naturally. How could he fail to surmise it?"

"You're sure?"

"I have worked with Sarek for many years, have I not? In addition, we are **both** telepaths. I have not the slightest doubt."

"Ning." Amanda drew a very controlled breath. "I've often remarked to Sarek I'd like to be a Helio being, but no more so than now, when I wish I had your sword like arms. I'd lop his Vulcan head off."

"Then I don't wonder Sarek prefers you human." Ning said. "Even as limited as human perceptions seem to-"

"Don't say it!" Amanda warned.

"I remind you, my friend, that you have **had** a child by him," Ning said. "He has served his usefulness in that regard. And much as I value him as a colleague, and the Federation requires his services, as one female to another, I must point this out. Surely you are fond of him. As am I, as a colleague. But as a mate, you must know that it is well **past** time you dispatched him for another. You are a female, Amanda. You must be true to your sex." She waved her feelers in emphasis at that, and with one powerful downdraft that half staggered Amanda, took herself off.

_To be continued…_


End file.
